Dogged
by Linnie McCary
Summary: The banter turns brutal as the Winchesters hunt a savage creature from Indian lore.
1. Chapter 1

_This one's for Tails, who somehow got the ball rolling. Spoilers through "Jus in Bello"; standard disclaimers apply. _

_This story contains a lot of very bad language and a fair amount of gore. I think it's also pretty dark, and it ends that way._

_On a happier note, there's plenty of pain and suffering for both of our handsome Winchester boys, and a thick application of angst, to boot._

_Dear Eric Kripke: I don't know what you have planned, but you're really scaring me. A lot. Please don't kill any more Winchesters, ever! Respectfully yours, Lin McCary_

**DOGGED**

When they finally found Calvin Jesperson, it was far too late to save him. Not surprising, really—the man had been missing for over a week, and had apparently been dead for most of it—but Sam felt discouraged, nonetheless. They'd had a run of bad luck, recently—bad besides the usual—and he'd been hoping that they would catch a break. Finding Jesperson alive would have been a good start.

The body lay at the edge of what would pass for meadow in any season other than winter, but now was just an open space of cold-killed weeds and barren bushes amidst the deep woods of southeastern Kentucky. Last night's rain had left shallow puddles dotting the ground, and Jesperson's remains a sodden mess.

Still, it was clear that animals had been at it, doing a fair share of damage. Careful not to leave boot prints in the muddy earth, Dean knelt beside the body, using a stick to pull the torn fabric of Jesperson's jacket away from the torn flesh of his throat.

Sam felt his stomach twist. "God, Dean, do you have to do that?"

"Pansy," Dean returned, corrosively dismissive, pointing the stick at the wounds on the man's neck. "Looks like that's what killed him, right there. Hell of a bite-mark—I'm betting whatever it was pulled him down, then finished the job with him on the ground. Jesus, guy's covered with claw-marks and bites. And look at the mud. Those tracks look like dog or coyote to you? Check the size of those Hush Puppies, wouldja? Freakin' Hound of the Baskervilles. I'm guessing three, maybe four of 'em on the initial attack, to do all this—the others, the little guys, they came later, when old Cal really couldn't care less."

Sam nodded, nose wrinkling in distaste as he pulled the EMF meter from his pocket and waved it vaguely around him. "Not the way I'd want to go, torn apart by—" The words were out before he thought to stop them, and the look Dean shot him was angry and icy. _Damn it!_

"Dean, I didn't mean—"

"Drop it, Sam."

The open wound of Dean's deal had been festering between them for the past two days, gnawing voraciously, coming around again to the point in the cycle where they both were touchy and snappish and bitter. They'd moved beyond baiting one another, mostly, past the yelling and flailing, now firmly ensconced in the stage where few words were exchanged, and those were cold and tight-lipped. Ruby's latest visit to Sam hadn't helped at all.

When they'd read about Calvin Jesperson's disappearance from Bell Grove, matched it to a series of disappearances in the area over the past hundred years or so, Sam couldn't help but hope that a new hunt might help heal the rift that currently separated the two brothers. But while Jesperson's death by dog-pack couldn't exactly be called natural, neither did it appear to be supernatural, which meant the Winchesters were still out of a job, still out of luck, and still out of sorts.

Sam stashed the silent meter back in his pocket with a sigh. "I'm not picking up anything, man, and if this was a black dog, the EMF would still be high, even after a week. Let's get back to town and call it in. I'm sure this man's family would rather know what happened than worry about him any more."

He reached down, offering Dean a hand, but his brother turned away, tossing the stick out into the bracken and using the impetus to rise unassisted.

"Watch where you step," he said gruffly, then set off for the Impala, leaving Sam alone behind him, more dispirited than ever.

* * *

The discovery of Calvin Jesperson's savaged body was the talk of the Bell Grove Inn that night, particularly once both the sheriff and the coroner dropped by the little restaurant to personally report to the chairman of the county board of supervisors. The latter happened to be dining with his wife at the table next to where the Winchesters were sitting, heads down, concentrating extremely hard on their dinners as the sheriff stopped beside them, gaze sweeping them passively.

Around the restaurant, conversation came to a halt, all eyes focused on the little group at the supervisor's table.

"Bill, Mamie," the coroner said quietly by way of greeting. "Hate to disturb your dinner, but I knew you'd want to hear it in person. Haven't completed my examination, of course, but I don't expect the finding'll be any different tomorrow than it is tonight. Poor Cal Jesperson was killed by that same pack of dogs been runnin' stock and deer for the past few months—ripped the throat right out of him, and he bled to death."

The supervisor's wife covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, George, that's just horrible," she said. "How awful for his family!"

"His sisters won't mind," her husband scoffed. "There was never any love lost between Cal and those two."

"Hush, Bill. I know the girls were always jealous of his success, but that doesn't mean they didn't love him."

Dean kept surreptitious watch on the sheriff's holstered gun as the man cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Bill, I want to assure you that my office is making those dogs a priority, now. Pete Riley shot two of them yesterday out by his house, so pack's already down to four. I'm going to personally see to it that they either get picked up or put down by sundown tomorrow."

"Good to hear, Kyle. Doc, you're sure it was dogs? Couldn't have been a bear?"

The coroner shook his head. "Bite patterns are definitely canine, although it looks like they scratched him up a bit more than I'd expect. I'll know for certain tomorrow, but for tonight, I'm willing to bet good money on it."

Sam caught his brother's eye over his burger, gently tapping an index finger twice on the table. Dean shrugged minutely and dragged a fry through the puddle of ketchup on his plate, dipping his head a little lower when the sheriff shifted beside them.

"I'm just glad we've found the body," the lawman said. "No more wasting time on Kelton Road snipe hunts, out to Saymill Pond and such."

"But didn't you find him through a tip?" Mrs. Supervisor asked, and the sheriff nodded.

"Came in through 911, like all the others, but this one sounded legit."

"Good thing you followed up, then," she replied, and the supervisor agreed.

"Board's not surprised it took so long to find him, Kyle," he said soothingly. "We've all hunted enough turkeys out there to know how rough that terrain is, and for all anybody knew, Cal had just taken off. Won that big award last month—maybe he'd moved to Cumberland or someplace bigger, opened a new office, and just didn't bother to tell anyone. You had no clue he was lying out there dead. Once those dogs are taken care of, you've done what you could."

The coroner turned to the sheriff, indicating it was time to go, and the sheriff nodded again, glancing sideways at the Winchesters. Sam took a long sip from his coffee, hand and mug covering much of his face.

"You've got my word that that dog-pack will be taken care of," the sheriff promised the supervisor. "Just thought you'd want to hear from George and me personally."

The two men took their leave, conversation around the room starting up again immediately, filling the air with the whispered hiss of "Jesperson."

Dean pushed the last bite of burger into his mouth. "We're leaving for Indiana first thing in the morning," he announced abruptly, then signaled to the waitress for the check.

Plate still half-full, Sam threw him a pointed look.

"Indiana?"

"I found us a gig."

Apparently, Dean wasn't sharing any details, and there would be no discussion. He snagged one more fry and shoved back from the table, catching Sam's glare.

"Fine," he snapped. "You pay."

He was out the door in seconds.

Sam took a deep breath, praying for patience, pulling out his wallet and emptying it when the waitress came by with their tab. He grabbed a final piece of melon and rose to go, making eye contact with the supervisor's wife as he did so.

She nodded to him cordially, and he returned the greeting.

"Excuse me," he said hesitantly around half-chewed honeydew. "I couldn't help overhearing—someone was killed by dogs?"

It was the supervisor who answered, wiping his mouth on a paper napkin, nodding. "Seems like it, son. Been a pack of 'em running loose in the valley for a while, now. They scared a little boy over by Stanboro a couple of weeks ago, tore up some people's pets and run the deer ragged, but this is the first time they come anywhere near hurtin' somebody."

"Shame, too," his wife chimed in. "Cal was such a nice man—he'd come a long way, just won some big accounting award or something, and now he's dead."

"Pity," Sam said on a swallow. "Seems like a bad way to go. Uh, enjoy your dinner."

Grimacing at the ineptness of his farewell, Sam left the restaurant, not surprised to see that his brother had already crossed the road and was disappearing through the door to their room, closing it firmly, leaving Sam well and truly behind.

* * *

In Indiana, the probable salt-and-burn Dean had found turned out to be a _definite_ salt-and-burn. They took care of it their second night in town, no fuss, no muss, no bother, and very little discussion. Which was a good thing, because most of the language they were using with one another wasn't very polite.

At a late breakfast the next morning, they silently fell back on old habit, Sam surfing the 'net for their next job, while Dean trawled through a variety of regional papers.

"No. Oh, nonono!" Dean straightened in his chair suddenly, then leaned over the diner table to peer more closely at the newspaper page, eggs on the fork in his hand tumbling to the floor unnoticed.

"Dean?" Sam looked up from his own breakfast, startled by his brother's outburst.

"Aw, shit, Sam—I think we might have missed something back in Kentucky." He tossed the paper across the table, Sam catching it quickly before it landed in his plate. "Check the item just below the fold."

"'Teen Missing,'" Sam read aloud.

"Yeah, that's it."

"'Gilman County sheriff's officers are searching for Amanda Apley, 13, who disappeared from her Stanboro home late Tuesday. Apley's backpack, containing her wallet, was found along Kelton Road shortly before her mother, Mary Kay Apley, 42, reported the girl missing.'"

"Stanboro's about thirty miles from Bell Grove by road, just on the other side of the valley—probably closer as the crow flies." Dean created a sketchy map on his plate out of hash-browns and sausage. "That guy that died last year was from Grangerford, right? Well, throw Grangerford into the mix, and you've pretty much got a triangle with Bell Valley right in the middle."

Sam wrinkled his forehead skeptically. "Dean, this article says they think Amanda ran away—says she's got a reputation as a wild child and that she's run away before. What makes you think that something's happened to her?"

"Wouldn't a runaway need her backpack, Sam? You left for school, you sure as hell took yours," Dean retorted, scowling, and Sam bristled at the jibe.

"Quit singing that sad old song, Dean, and move on," he said caustically.

Dean felt his temper flare, but he carefully put down his fork before he stabbed it into the table. Or into his brother. When he spoke, his voice was even, his face purposely blank.

"A runaway girl would definitely hang on to her backpack, along with the 34 dollars in her wallet. Come on, Sam. Three tiny little towns, practically within spitting distance of one another, and all of a sudden three people are missing. Not to mention the long history of local disappearances that took us to Kentucky in the first place. I'd say they're all a little too coincidental, wouldn't you?"

"Just because she lost her backpack doesn't mean something supernatural took her. And 'all of a sudden'? Those disappearances happened over the course of a hundred years, Dean. The guy from Grangerford's been missing for, what, ten months? They still aren't even sure he's dead because they haven't found a body." Sam took a bite of toast and chewed a moment before continuing. "I mean, think about it, Dean. Where's the pattern? What do a beekeeper, a CPA and a junior high school student have in common? Nothing."

"_You_ think about it, Sam!" Dean glanced around quickly, aware that the rising anger in his voice had drawn attention from a young family dining two tables away. _So_ _much for leashing his temper_. He hunched lower over the table, eying his brother intently. "Maybe they don't need to have anything in common. Wrong place, wrong time? And maybe we just haven't done enough homework. C'mon, Sam; we thought Jesperson was worth checking out, and now I think he's worth a second look. This little girl, too. Finish up—we're going back to Bell Valley."

Dean wolfed down another link of sausage, rising and pulling some bills out of his wallet to cover their check. "Let's go!" he insisted, out the door before Sam could even wipe the crumbs from his mouth.

Heaving a frustrated sigh, Sam tossed back the last of his coffee and grabbed the laptop, stowing it in the carry-bag as he walked to the parking lot. The Impala's engine was already rumbling, Dean glaring at him impatiently behind the wheel.

"Hey, Kelton Road," Sam said as he climbed into the passenger seat. "Why does that sound familiar?"

"Dunno. Close the damn door and let's go."

"Jesus, Dean, just give me a second, would you?" Sam angled his long legs into the foot-well, twisting to deposit the laptop in the backseat as Dean maneuvered the car out onto the road and headed back for Kentucky. "Kelton Road. Isn't that where that pond was?"

"What pond?"

"The one they searched for Calvin Jesperson's body. Saymill Pond, right? You remember—the sheriff said they'd had a tip, but he seemed embarrassed that they were following up on it."

There was a pause, and then Dean's forehead creased as he cut his eyes at Sam. "Yeah, and then Jesperson's body was somewhere else altogether. Why was the sheriff embarrassed about following up on a tip?"

"I don't know. The source, maybe?"

"So, who was it?"

Sam pivoted in his seat again, retrieving the laptop and firing it up. Ten silent minutes later, he huffed a disbelieving laugh.

"Sam?"

The young hunter readjusted the computer screen, the better to read the 911 report he had located. "They were following up every lead they had, Dean, but there weren't many. One of the early ones was a call from a woman who was crying, begging them to check out Saymill Pond because they'd find a body there."

"So?"

"So they asked her when she'd seen it, and she told them it wasn't there yet."

Dean's expression as he turned to his brother was a study in confusion.

"Come again?"

"She said there'd be a body at Saymill Pond, but it wasn't there yet. She'd seen it in a dream."

Dean shook his head, returning his focus to the road ahead. "So she was a nut job."

"Really, Dean? 'Cause I'm thinking maybe she was clairvoyant. I don't know exactly where on Kelton Road they found Amanda's backpack, but it connects Stanboro and Bell Grove, and Saymill Pond is just a mile or so off Kelton where it doglegs into the valley, about halfway between the two towns."

"You're telling me that the dream this woman had…maybe it wasn't Jesperson's body she saw, but Amanda Apley's. And that the body wasn't at the pond yet, because Amanda hadn't gone missing yet." Dean's voice was ripe with skepticism.

Sam nodded, mouth pursed tight. "Could be. Jesperson was small, and depending on the condition of the body, it might be hard to tell age or gender, particularly in a dream or a vision. I don't know, Dean—I kind of have a feeling about this."

Dean's head swiveled toward him again, swiftly. "A _feeling_ feeling?"

"No, I don't think so. But maybe we'd better check out that pond."

Dean pressed harder on the accelerator.

* * *

They reached Bell Valley in the early morning, sun just rising, mist hanging heavy, trees throwing long shadows as Dean parked the car well off the main road and the brothers moved quickly on foot down the overgrown lane to Saymill Pond.

This time, there was a faint whine of sound from the EMF meter in Sam's hand, but it was the smell that drew them to her, half-hidden on the bank of the fetid pond in a swath of dead and broken cattails. The body was bloated, skin already slipping off musculature and bone, sluggish bottle-flies feeding on eyes, mouth and the myriad slashing wounds that covered what had once been Amanda Apley.

There were paw-prints everywhere.

Sam couldn't help the disgusted groan that escaped him as he whirled away and doubled over, retching violently. By the time he was through, turning back to examine their gruesome discovery, Dean was escaping into that place deep inside where nothing could touch him, his expression growing impassive, eyes steely.

Sam knew what it cost him.

"Dean—" he began, but his brother cut him off instantly.

"We're finding this fucker, Sam. I don't care what it takes."

"You think it _is_ a skriker, after all?"

Dean was shaking his head before Sam even finished the question.

"No. This is no black dog."

The younger man wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, dragging in deep gulps of the cold, early-morning air to help settle his stomach. He quickly scanned the pond, the cattails, his brother—_oh, God, anything but the body_.

"You know we can't call this one in," he said. "Not yet. There'll be cops everywhere, and we need time to figure out what did this."

Suddenly Dean's face twisted, and for a horrible moment Sam thought he might cry.

"This is on us. It's on our heads," Dean said roughly, his eyes never leaving the ravaged corpse as he stoically appraised the damage, evaluating the injuries.

Sam grabbed at his brother's sleeve, yanking him away from the terrible sight.

"No, Dean!" he said firmly, brooking no disagreement. "Don't do that to yourself. This is _not _our fault."

"'Not our fault'?" Dean's voice rose with bitterness and incredulity. "How can you say that, Sam? We were here three days ago, when this little girl was still alive, and we knew something had killed Cal Jesperson. We didn't do our _jobs_, Sam, and a thirteen-year-old kid is dead because of it!"

"Dean, we made a mistake, I agree, and the consequences are awful. But even if we'd been here, Amanda Apley might still have been killed. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so were we."

Sam paused, making sure he had Dean's eye.

"That's just the way it is."

He paused again, growing uneasy about the coldness spreading across his brother's face.

"I'm sorry," he finished quietly.

"Yeah, you sure are." The words were ice as Dean slapped Sam's hand away.

"Excuse me?"

"What is happening to you, Sam?" Dean blurted angrily. "You used to be Mister I-Bleed-for-Humanity's-Pain, and now it's like you don't even care!"

"That's not fair, Dean," Sam grated, his own ire rising in an instant. "I care, but I have to be _realistic_, too. There's a world of evil out there, and I'm just one man. I can't fight it all, not all by myself, so I'm just going to have to get used to failing. I don't really have any choice, do I? And this was _not_ our fault!"

Out on Kelton Road, someone's truck shifted gears, the noise traveling to them across the mile of mud and bracken, breaking their attention but not the tension between them. For a long moment they glared at one another, each daring the other to be first to blink.

"I don't even know you any more," Dean growled so low that Sam almost did not hear him. "Don't you fucking put your hand on me like that ever again."

Tearing his eyes from Sam's, he took a last look at Amanda Apley's torn remains, turned on his heel, and marched back down the path to where they had left the car.

Sam had no choice but to follow.

* * *

They were going to kill each other, no doubt about it, if they didn't get some breathing room.

Dean dropped Sam off at the motel in Grangerford to check them in and start the research, then headed out to Stanboro, ostensibly to interview the dead girl's mother.

Mary Kay Apley stood on the front porch of her home, talking mournfully to a TV news camera-man about her missing daughter, three brooding boys beside her, a girl about 18 with an infant in her arms lurking just behind.

"I only wish Mandy'd come home," Dean heard the mother say brokenly over the Impala's idling engine, and the baby wailed.

He rolled up the window quickly, felt the boys' sullen eyes following him as he drove away.

_Christ, how could Hell be any worse than this?_

Twenty minutes and a pit-stop at the gas station later, he was on the campus of Bell Valley Junior College, opening the door to the second-floor offices of the History Department.

Even though he only used the 60-watt smile on the coed staffing the reception desk, she still sat up straighter when she saw him, one hand flying to her hair to tuck a loose strand behind an ear.

"Excuse me," Dean said, ever the gentleman. "I'm looking for a little information, and I bet you can help me."

* * *

Sam had texted him the motel room number, but the place was empty when Dean got back to Grangerford just before noon. There was a note on top of the television, however.

"Out," it read tersely, Sam's attitude plainly evident in the angry slant of the printed letters.

Annoyed, Dean crumpled the scrap of paper and tossed it into the waste basket. Discarded the idea of calling, too. Instead, he headed back outside to change the spark plugs in the Impala, a job Sam was supposed to have taken care of back in Indiana.

_Fucking better take better care of my car when I'm gone, Sammy_, Dean thought darkly.

It took him the best part of an hour. Just as he was finishing, Sam showed up out of nowhere, standing well clear of the car so as not to get engine oil on his suit or ugly-ass striped tie. He was carrying a couple of grocery bags with what Dean hoped was lunch inside.

"Where you been?" Dean asked, wiping his hands on a shop rag, giving his little brother the once-over.

"Talking to some people about the missing beekeeper," Sam replied noncommittally. "He sort of had a reputation in the industry—developed a new strain of honeybee, a few years back—but I guess he kind of kept to himself. Nobody around here knew all that much about him, except he raised this new bee and his brother used to work with him, but they had some sort of falling-out. You interview the Apleys?"

Dean scowled, slamming the hood closed and pushing past Sam into their room.

"The mother was talking to the press when I got there, and I just…." He left the sentence unfinished, heading for the bathroom sink to wash his hands.

"Just what, Dean?"

Sam set the grocery bags on the little table by the window, withdrawing the sixer of long-necks first. When his brother came back into the room, dropping to the bed and rubbing his hands distractedly along his thighs, Sam pulled a bottle out of the cardboard carry-pack and passed it to him.

Dean acknowledged the courtesy with a nod, twisting the cap off deftly and taking a long draw. _God, there wasn't much that tasted worse than lukewarm beer_.

"You talk to her or not?" Sam persisted, opening his own bottle, and Dean flared with sudden animosity.

"I just couldn't, Sam, okay?" he snapped. "I couldn't do it. Ask a bunch of personal questions—was Amanda a good student, did she have any enemies, by any chance did she practice witchcraft during a full moon. Her brothers and sister standing there, mom traumatized, hardly able to put two words together. How could I pretend that an hour earlier I hadn't just stood over her mutilated body?"

Sam's face was dispassionate as he unbagged the rest of the groceries. Bread and cold-cuts, a small jar of sliced pickles, some spicy mustard. Couple of apples and a pack of red licorice-whips, and all they were missing was the dairy.

"Fine," he replied simply, beginning to build their sandwiches. "So, you just worked on the car, then?"

Dean gusted an exasperated sigh. "No. I did not just work on the car. And changing the plugs was your fucking job, by the way. I also went out to the local college and talked to the history department chair. Looking for the usual—battles or burial grounds or curses or whatever."

"Find anything interesting?"

"Maybe. Place has been settled by Indians and whites for a long time. Nothin' too bloody between them, but they weren't always the best neighbors. Indians got moved out about 170 years ago."

"Yeah, Trail of Tears," Sam interjected, and it was obvious from Dean's expression that he was unfamiliar with the term. "The professor didn't mention--? Never mind. What tribe?"

"Around here, mostly Cherokee. Yuchi, Shawnee and some others not too far away."

Sam passed Dean the first sandwich and set to making his own.

"Okay," he prompted, knowing Dean was going to make him work for the information. _Friggin' jerk_. _Sometimes his brother's mean streak was a mile wide_. "What else?"

Dean chewed for a moment on the huge bite he had taken, savoring the mix of mustard and pickle. "Valley got its name when Josiah Bell bought most of it in the late 1850s," he said finally, and Sam raised his eyebrows.

"He any relation to Ol' Jack over in Tennessee?"

"Uh, no—I don't know. The history guy didn't say." Dean scratched his chin thoughtfully, frowning. "I don't think so, but wouldn't _that_ be somethin'?"

"Dean, hang on a sec."

Sam abandoned his lunch, grabbing their father's journal from his duffel and leafing quickly through it until he found the page he wanted. "Dad had some notes here on the Bell Wi—oh. Nothing definitive, I guess. Last line just says 'possible hunt.'"

The older Winchester shook his head with a snort, washing down the rest of his sandwich with another swig from the long-neck. "Man was a master of understatement, huh? Anyway, before Bell showed up, this place was called Chischono Valley."

Sam had the sudden feeling that Dean had been building to this point all along, and it made him apprehensive. "What's 'Chischono'?" he asked warily.

The answer began with a casual shrug. "White people bastardizing the Cherokee language. 'Cause before the tribe got relocated, there was a different name for this whole area."

Dean looked up at Sam through long lashes, and Sam felt the hair on his arms rise.

"What was it?" he asked, and his brother's grin was smug.

"They called it The Devil's Place, Sam. 'Chischono' is the Cherokee word for Devil."

* * *

_Comments welcomed. Please look for Chapter 2 on Saturday._


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you for reading! I have appreciated the comments very much, as well as the alerts and "faves." They're amazingly gratifying, and I'm grateful to you for them._

_I promised pain and suffering—here comes some of it._

**DOGGED**

**Chapter Two**

An hour later, Dean was honing his knife for the second time since lunch, the sound setting Sam's teeth on edge. He raised tired eyes from the computer screen, back straight, shoulders tense.

"Dean, if you don't—"

"You find anything on those Indian sites?" Dean interrupted immediately. Sitting around the motel room had begun to eat at him, and staring at the back of his little brother's head while he worked on the laptop wasn't helping.

"Not so much," Sam admitted, trying to pop a kink out of his neck. "There's some pow-wow stuff and the tribe's trying to get recognized by the government again, so they've definitely got an agenda. But there's nothing about Bell Valley specifically, and as for local lore, there's not much beyond the usual creation legends."

"Damn it!"

Unable to sit still a moment longer, Dean grabbed the duffel and rifled through it, pulling out a variety of weapons.

"I can't stand thinking about that little girl still lying out there, Sammy. We've got to do something."

Sam assessed his brother's agitation critically, knowing it was more than impatience, more than adrenaline. Dean had taken Amanda Apley's death hard—it was just like him to shoulder the responsibility for it, even when he had no reason to do so. _Hi, I'm Dean Winchester, and saving the world is my job. Every day I try to kick some evil creature's ass, and when I fail, I kick my own ass._ Sam felt a twinge in his chest, and wished for a moment he felt worse than he did that the Apley girl was dead. He brushed it off with a mental shake of his head.

"Dean, we don't know what _to_ do," he said. "We still don't know what we're dealing with."

"C'mon," Dean replied sharply, examining a spare clip before tucking it into a hip pocket. "We know enough, right? We take holy water, iron, lead and silver. Maybe it's a Cherokee demon, so we take—what, bow and arrow? Medicine bags?"

Sam started to roll his eyes, then frowned, pensive. "We could maybe give ourselves some protection by smudging."

"Say what, now?" Dean hefted the big Bowie thoughtfully, paying more attention to the weapons-bag than to his brother.

"There's some white sage in the trunk, right? We light it, bathe our clothes in the smoke. Instant monster-repellent. It's common practice in Tsalagi ritual."

Dean shot him a look, testing the foreign word soundlessly, then stood to hand Sam a knife and pistol.

He cocked an eyebrow.

"Yeah—I crashed a seminar once in indigenous Western cultures." Sam shrugged, taking the weapons. "Besides, it's all over the Internet. Means 'Cherokee.'"

His brother twitched a quick, fake smile. "Well, come on, then, kemosabe. What are we waiting for? Let's smudge up and go."

But Sam shook his head, refusing to budge. "Look, Dean, I want to get this thing as much as you do, but I don't want us getting killed because we're not prepared."

He snagged his cell phone off the nightstand, scrolling quickly through the contact list and making the call. As always, Bobby picked up on the third ring.

Their old friend wasn't happy when the young hunter explained what they had come across.

"_I can check the lore, Sam, but there ain't gonna be a whole lot of it specific to that region. Cherokees were widespread before the Trail of Tears relocation, but then they were pretty much gone from Kentucky for a long time. There's a group of them back, now, but I don't know a lot about them."_

"Yeah, I found their website. It didn't really have what I was looking for."

Sam heard the rustle of whiskers across the mouthpiece as Bobby shifted the phone to his other ear, chuckling.

"_Imagine that. Listen, if you two are gonna try to track this thing, whatever it is, I want you to do more than just wave that sage around. You need to ingest it, too."_

That was new. "Ingest it? You mean eat it?"

"_No, you moron, you're supposed to smoke it. It's a part of tribal tradition pretty much all across the States—it'll give you a little added protection. I think you're gonna need it."_

Sam nodded. "Okay. Thanks, Bobby—we'll let you know what happens."

"_Wait a second, 'fore you go runnin' off half-cocked. You boys figure out why this thing is actin' up all of a sudden?"_

"Not really," Sam replied heavily, Amanda Apley's bloated face and torn throat flashing in his head, making his stomach clench. "The history goes back a way, but there's no apparent seasonal or lunar cycle, and it doesn't seem to be related to weather change or any other natural phenomenon. And except for their geographical proximity, we can't find anything the latest victims have in common."

"_Damn it_," Bobby grumbled. _"Seems odd somethin' as vicious as that'd go so long between kills, if it's local and it's not pickin' its targets. __You keep your brother on a short leash, and just be sure neither one of you's next on whatever list this thing is carryin'."_

"We'll be careful, Bobby. Thanks again."

"Wha'd he say?" Dean asked, still rummaging in the duffel, and Sam shrugged.

"Same as usual: We're morons."

* * *

Once their arsenal was prepared, they wasted no time getting out to Kelton Road.

"Can't straighten the curves, Dean," Sam muttered once, wincing slightly at the squeal of tires on pavement, but if Dean heard, he gave no sign other than to feed the Impala more gas.

_Yeah_, Sam thought with irritation, _he heard_.

They pulled over at a sheltered spot well off the road, roughly a third of the way between where Amanda Apley's body lay and where they'd found Calvin Jesperson.

Standing beside the open trunk, Sam carefully removed the hemp wrapping from the little bundles of sage they had cached, lighting the first one with a disposable lighter. He let the flame rise for a quick moment before blowing it out, smoke eddying in curls from the shock of dried leaves.

"Hold your arms out, and turn around slowly," he instructed, his brother obeying with a glower as Sam moved the sage close along his body, waving the smoke toward him, letting it saturate Dean's jacket and shirts. Then he pointed downward. "All right—spread 'em."

Whatever Dean said under his breath was definitely not complimentary, but he did as he was told, eyes fixed on the car, adopting a wider stance as Sam bathed his jeans in the smoke.

"Guess that'll have to do," Sam said after a few moments. Dean stepped back, flapping a nonchalant hand in front of his face to dispel the aroma while Sam re-lit the sage and snuffed it once again before handing it over.

"Now you do me," the younger Winchester said.

Dean quirked a demurring smile, retort on his lips, and Sam huffed petulantly, cutting him off before he could start.

"God, Dean, aren't you ever going to grow up?"

The smile fell from Dean's face as he snatched the sage from his brother's hand. "Not much chance of that, is there?" he growled, pushing Sam roughly to turn him, smoke wrapping around his lanky frame.

Sam's breath caught in his throat as he realized what he'd just done. _Oh, how stupid could he be?_ He hadn't intended to say that, had never meant to hurt his brother with some careless, heartless memento mori of a comment, certainly not with Dean's death so close at hand. _But he freaking gets off on ticking me off, _Sam thought, bright spots of ire in his cheeks. _He knows he's being a bastard, and he knows it gets me every single time._

Of course it was the stress that made them both tense, made them quick-tempered and hypersensitive, feeling every cut twice as deep. Dean hadn't said much, but he had to be scared shitless—God knew, Sam was. Still, there was really no excuse for their churlish behavior this week, for the barbs and the taunts and the insults. They should be—fuck, Sam didn't know—_bonding_, for God's sake, making Kodak-fucking-_memories. _The fact they weren't made him mad all over again.

"Dean, I—"

Dean abruptly took his elbow and yanked him around one last time, smile cocky and insincere and completely insufferable, while the bundle burned to ash.

"There you go, Smoky. All done."

Dean ground the stub of sage into the mud with a booted heel, then lit one of the joints he had rolled, a quick toke getting it started before he offered it to Sam with a sardonic laugh.

"Lighten up, Sammy. Native American doobie?"

Sam took the sage cigarette without thanks, and Dean lit another joint for himself, dragging at it tentatively.

"Sucks," he critiqued, laughing again at the double entendre. Sam turned away crossly, patently ignoring him.

They stood shoulder to shoulder, leaning against the trunk in spiteful silence, inhaling deeply, holding the harsh smoke in their lungs where it burned and sanctified them. At first, the unpleasant sensation made Sam cough painfully, and he waited for Dean's caustic jibe. But Dean said nothing, eyes distant, toking on his spliff absently until almost nothing remained.

When Sam took his final puff, Dean glanced at him, ghost of a smile on his mouth.

"Shoulda asked if you wanted a roach clip, Sammy," he said, voice soft, and the tension that had been between them dissipated with the smoke.

"Dean, I—"

_It was so damn hard to know what to say, when he wanted to say everything, and when there was nothing he could say._

"What?"

"I wanted to ask you—"

Sam stopped, completely at a loss.

"Not a mind-reader here, Sammy. Ask me what?"

_Ask you, do you hate me for not being able to save you? Ask, do you know how much I love you? Ask, how the hell am I supposed to do this once you're gone? _

Sam looked up at the sky, blinking, knowing the questions were moot, any answers meaningless. In a few short weeks, it would all be meaningless, and there was nothing he could do about it.

_Dean, I wanted to ask you not to go_.

Meaningless.

He sniffed, coughing again on the smoke still irritating his lungs, then quirking his own insincere grin. "I wanted to ask, did you make extras?"

Dean nodded slowly in response, eyes on his brother calculating.

"Good," Sam said. "Bring them, just in case."

And, like that, the moment was gone.

So they set off into the trees without another word, searching for whatever evil thing had killed Calvin Jesperson and Amanda Apley.

The woods were a mix of broad-leaf and fir. Far away they could hear the undulating whine of a chainsaw, and once the faint, warbling gobble of wild turkeys, but the EMF meter in Dean's hand remained stubbornly silent.

They followed meandering deer-trails for over an hour, looking for prints or scat, but found no sign of dogs or ghosts or ancient Cherokee devils.

"Where do you think we are?" Sam asked finally, peering into the trees that surrounded them, deferring to his brother's better sense of direction.

Dean paused a moment, considering. "Less than three miles from the car, I guess, but we've covered a lot more ground than that. C'mon, let's head farther north while we've still got light."

After another fifteen minutes, Sam was ready to call it a day. He waved a hand around his face, hoping to drive away the invisible midges that had begun to whine in his ears, echoing theirs with one of his own.

"Dean, this is ridiculous. We have no idea where to find this thing, and Bell Valley is enormous. What are we doing out here?"

This time, his brother didn't even slow down. "I already told you, Sammy—I don't want that little girl to have to stay out here one more night."

Sam pulled in a lungful of air. "I get that. But I say we go back and do some more research on whatever might have killed her. Right now, we've got nothing to go on."

Dean's response was instant and angry. "Listen, smart guy, we know it dumped two bodies near here—one to the south and one to the north. So we're in its hunting grounds. Maybe this damn sage works too good, and it's steering clear, I don't know, but we gotta keep looking."

Judging by the ease with which he'd drawn breath, Sam doubted the sage was still in their lungs—its protective effects were likely gone from their clothing, too. He thought briefly about smudging again, but the idea was forgotten when the brush nearby crackled suddenly and something large burst from it.

"Dean!" Sam shouted in surprise.

The shotgun was in Dean's hand instantly, cocked and aimed, but Dean lowered the weapon unfired as he watched the deer bounce away. "You comin' or what?" he asked sourly before moving on along the trail.

Sam planted himself, hands on hips, his pulse still racing, lips pursed in frustration. Which of them was being the bigger jerk, he couldn't say, but he guessed the contest was close to a tie at this point.

As to who was the better hunter, there was no question, the deer breaking cover a case in point. Dean's response had been instantaneous, while Sam had not raised his own weapon.

Dean's skill and single-mindedness while hunting were aspects of the older man that Sam had come to admire—even envy—since the two of them had reconnected after Stanford, particularly in the past year. Dean had been born to the job, an irony lost on neither of them, given their family's early history.

Hunting, his brother was all focus, but Sam? Too often, he found himself thinking too much, lens stubbornly set on wide-angle.

_I see the forest, and Dean sees the trees_, Sam mused, waving vaguely at the air around his head.

He felt the worry-line etch itself between his brows as he remembered his recent encounter with the Trickster. If the demi-god could be believed, then soon all that remained of Sam would be an intense, determined focus, everything else burned away by the annealing fire of Dean's death.

He pulled in another deep breath, troubled by the memory.

"What?" Dean barked in annoyance from up the trail.

"Nothing," Sam growled back, swatting again at the unseen insects and heading toward him. "Just go."

His brother's death would mean hell for them both. Sometimes Sam thought bitterly that, of the two of them, Dean might end up the better-off.

* * *

The trees had thinned somewhat, and they had just reached a small clearing when the EMF meter abruptly yipped, stilled for half a second, then began squealing shrilly.

There was a sudden smell of dark fecundity, the stench of rotting carrion, sick, wet and sweet. Sam's gorge rose instantly into his throat, gagging him. Then Dean shouted as something large and black and not quite _there_ appeared between them, a flurry of motion with the din of howling winds and howling dogs, shrieking children and screaming women, making Sam's ears pop, deafening him.

And then Dean was down, his mouth stretched wide with a soundless cry, bloody slashes appearing across one shoulder, baring rent flesh through his jacket, through his shirts. He raised his left arm defensively, using the gun in his right hand to fire round after round of silver and iron into the nothingness that was smothering him, until suddenly he went flying through the air, a weightless toy randomly tossed aside to land with what must have been a sickening thud.

Sam could not hear it, nor could he hear his own shout.

"Dean!"

He flung himself across the clearing toward where his brother lay sprawled beneath a rough-barked tree, and some tiny, faraway part of Sam's brain wondered if he were permanently deafened. A much larger, much closer part wondered if Dean were dead.

But his brother struggled upright, one hand propped against the tree-trunk, the other pushing against the leaf-strewn ground, dazed, eyes wide with anger and fright and a fierce determination to rise as the swirling darkness then leaped at Sam, engulfing him in an impenetrable mist of _nothing._ As suddenly as Sam had lost his hearing, it returned with a cacophony of snapping jaws, screeching birds and roaring thunder, a hurricane of noise that included Sam's own cries as invisible claws slashed at him, flayed him across shoulder and chest and side.

Sam fell to the ground under the onslaught, his left knee buckling, twisting awkwardly beneath him as he flailed to combat something that was not _there_. Its heavy weight pinned him, a roiling anvil of hatred and anger crushing him into the mud and dead leaves, stealing his breath as he struggled beneath it, writhing and clawing, grabbing for purchase and finding none. Rancid, hot breath steamed and spattered against his face and neck, and Sam knew without doubt that his throat would be ripped out with his next heartbeat.

_Dean, help me! _he thought in terror.

Then there was a dampening, somehow, the clamor dimming, movement slowing, the weight easing against his chest. The darkness shrank, hesitated, coiled atop him, measuring for a long moment, and Sam felt the pressure of dripping fangs against his windpipe, tightening slowly rather than snapping. The thing was testing him, tasting him, as if determining his flavor.

Just when he thought they'd puncture flesh, the fangs suddenly relented, and his throat was released.

Sam's ears popped again, painfully, and the darkness was gone, vanishing in an instant.

"Jesus Christ, Sammy!"

Dean reeled across the clearing and fell to his knees beside his brother, clutching at Sam's shredded clothing, hands pressing into the gaping wounds. Sam cried out, white-hot pain flaring through him at Dean's touch, and Dean hesitated momentarily before whipping out of his jacket and holding it tight against the worst of Sam's injuries, ignoring the blood streaming down his own body as he fought to stanch the flow of Sam's blood.

"Dean…" Sam breathed, twisting in anguish as he tried to free the leg trapped beneath him. "God—Dean, my knee."

Dean peered at him stupidly, blinking hard as though to clear away cobwebs, seeming finally to catch on as he drew back and rolled Sam gingerly to one side, enough so that Sam could straighten his leg. Sam groaned, pain jolting through him with the movement, but there was relief, too, as the strain on his knee eased.

"Better," he said through clenched teeth, but the respite was brief as Dean swayed drunkenly above him, eyes rolling into his head before he crashed down upon his younger brother, unconscious.

Sam followed him into oblivion.

* * *

It was twilight when Sam roused, Dean still slumped heavily over him, pressing him into the muddy forest floor.

Sam moaned, his brother stirring with the sound, shifting against the claw-marks that louvered Sam's chest and side, making him moan again.

"Fuck, Dean, get off me!" Sam pushed feebly at Dean's shoulder, and Dean groaned.

"Whassat?"

The response was slow and slurred, and when Dean raised himself upright, Sam noted the trail of red across his forehead and the glassy look of his eyes.

"Sam?"

There was blood everywhere, splashed broadly across their shirts so it was impossible to tell whose was whose. Dean's jacket had been pressed between them, a wadded, wrinkled bandage that had done its work, stopping much of their bleeding, now lying tacky and stained across Sam's chest. Dean gazed at the garment dazedly, plucking at it with fingers made clumsy by concussion.

Sam pushed his hand away, redirecting his brother's attention to the slashes across Dean's upper arm and chest, then took careful stock of his own injuries.

Burning pain blared insistently in three places on his torso—right shoulder, right side, left chest—but it was his knee that shrieked loudest. Beyond the noise of those wounds was the subtle throb of his windpipe, where assessing jaws had firmly gripped but had not torn.

_Why hadn't the thing killed him?_

Sam shuddered.

"Sam!" Dean was frowning down at him, listing slightly on his knees, hand clamped across the high left side of his chest where his shirt was shredded. "Sammy?"

Sam stifled another moan, opting instead to take in a hissing breath and struggling to sit up on the exhale.

"Hey, hey, hey—easy!" Dean's touch was clumsy as he helped his brother upright, then shifted so that Sam could lean back against him. "Lemme just see, Sam. Can't see. Where you hurt?"

"It's not bad," Sam said, and it was almost the truth. "Cold, mostly—we gotta get off this wet ground. My knee…."

"'M gonna help you. Jus' give me a sec."

But Dean's head dropped down into the crook of Sam's neck, his hands falling away from Sam's arms as he slumped weakly forward.

"Dean!"

Gritting his teeth against the agony, Sam squirmed on the muddy earth until he could throw his arm around Dean's shoulders and hold him up. The pain was almost more than he could bear, and he could feel fresh blood soaking into his shirt as the movement reopened his wounds, Dean's ruined jacket falling to the ground unheeded.

"Dean, man, you with me?"

"Shhh," Dean whispered groggily. "Not so loud, Sammy—gonna wake Dad."

"Okay, fine," Sam said, gentling his voice, "but we've got to get out of here before that thing comes back. Can you walk?"

"'Course I can walk," his brother snorted derisively. "I jus' can't _see_ very well."

"Okay, okay—I'll be eyes, and you be legs. Dean? Dean. Wake up! Come on, we need to get to the car. Here, I'm just going to—" Sam hoisted himself quickly to both feet, pushing off Dean's good shoulder and then grabbing him by the collar before his brother could topple over. Blanching with pain, favoring his left leg heavily, Sam took a moment to restock, glancing hastily across the clearing and into the trees for any sign that the dark thing was returning.

The mud around them was littered with the padded footprints of what looked like a very large dog.

Sam tugged urgently at Dean's collar until Dean made a choking sound.

"Dude, get up," Sam said, not taking his eyes off the encircling trees. "C'mon, I'll help."

He reached down carefully, and Dean struggled to pull himself hand over hand up Sam's long arm, until they were both gasping, sweating, swaying, but on their feet.

"'S dark, Sammy," Dean said, squinting into the twilight and clearly seeing nothing clearly.

Sam threw his left arm over Dean's shoulder, clutching the front of Dean's blood-soaked shirt in his right hand as he angled them in the direction of the Impala. "Let's just get back to the car, okay? I think it's this way."

A three-quarter moon had risen, brightening the sky by the time they dragged one another out of the deepest woods and onto the trail that would lead them to the Impala. Sam murmured softly with almost every step, pain a flaming poker in his knee and across his chest and side. Dean did not hear his brother's quiet groans, fiercely concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other, each heartbeat pounding into his brain like a mallet.

They stumbled a half dozen times, Dean falling once to his knees, overbalanced, and Sam nearly following him down. The younger hunter kept casting glances backward, over their shoulders, expecting to see darkness upon darkness rearing up to attack them, but Dean kept bleary eyes doggedly focused ahead.

"C-cold," Sam said once, teeth chattering despite the fact he was drenched in sweat from the effort of their trek.

"I know, Sammy," Dean whispered on a harsh intake of breath as his boot slipped in the mud beneath him. If he fell again, he wasn't sure he had the strength to get back up. His own voice sounded far too loud in his head, coupled with the drumbeat of his heart, and he strained to see the path before them. "Almost there. We gotta keep goin'."

Finally, finally, Sam spotted the Impala parked near the moonlit ribbon of road, her own darkness offering them a haven from the black terror behind them.

"There, Dean—there."

It took all they had left in them to reach her.

Dean dazedly planted Sam in the back so he could stretch out and regroup, then collapsed without urging into the passenger seat. God knew they were in no shape to go anywhere for some time.

Sam performed cautious triage on his own body, discovering the bleeding had markedly slowed. But the gashes still burned like fire, and his shirt was saturated, sticking clammily to his skin when Sam tried to pull it away to assess the damage. His knee had blown up and was throbbing painfully, his probing fingers instantly finding the most tender spots. Then he shifted focus to his throat, where he could still feel the sensation of the dark thing pressing its fangs delicately but insistently against his windpipe.

_Why? _Sam wondered._ Why had it released him?_

Then he wondered if it would be better not to know.

He roused periodically to check his brother's condition, calling weakly until Dean responded to whatever inane question Sam posed. Sometimes the effects of concussion weren't immediate, and he just needed to be sure—no. Truth was, he really just needed to hear Dean's voice.

"Dean. Day is it?"

"Dunno. Nighttime, anyway."

"Yeah. 'Kay. Wha's your middle name?"

Silence.

"Dean. Answer me."

"Jus' lemme sleep."

"Not 'til you tell me your middle name."

"Uh. A_dor_able." The dopey grin on his brother's face was audible.

"_Ass_hole," Sam corrected with a snort.

"Back atcha, Sammy." A pause; then, roughly, "Sammy? Y'okay?"

Another pause, a longer one, until finally, "Yeah. 'M okay."

"You still bleedin'?"

"'M okay."

Ultimately, the Impala was quiet, silence broken only by a sporadic groan or gasp as the Winchesters stirred in their exhausted sleep.

It was nearly dawn when Dean felt the car shift, bucking slightly as Sam crawled into the driver's side, breath catching as he moved. Then the engine was rumbling, tires biting into gravel and dead pine-straw until they hit blacktop, and the Impala growled with smooth caution along the valley road.

Dean barely understood his own "Y'okay?" and wasn't sure whether Sam's reply was a hiss of pain or a shush to ease him.

"Sammy?" He tried to struggle up, his head splitting with the effort, but Sam instantly placed a gentling hand on his arm. This time, Dean clearly heard the sharp intake of breath.

"I can drive," Sam rasped, and no matter how much he wanted to be the one taking charge, taking care of everything, all Dean could do was take his little brother at his word.

* * *

Dean hadn't uttered a sound in the last twenty miles, his head lolling on his chest or against the car-door, and at last Sam had reached out painfully to pull his brother's limp form to him, nestling Dean's head in his lap. A hand placed hesitantly on Dean's brow came away sticky with blood from the weeping hairline gash, but the bleeding had clearly slowed. Sam would have heaved a sigh of relief had he been able to draw a decent breath.

Effort was agony, and he couldn't afford any more of either. He felt drained, the claw-marks across his arms and torso somehow enervating, and he barely mustered the energy to move his foot from accelerator to brake-pedal as the motel in Grangerford came into sight. Sam let the Impala coast into the parking lot, carefully planning his moves before he made them.

He parked directly in front of the motel room, passenger-side parallel to the walkway. A swing of the door and a few short steps were all that separated them from the relative security of the room, the scant comfort of their beds, but for one long, awful moment Sam thought it was more than he could hope to accomplish, even by himself, and much less with his brother's dead weight in his arms.

But Dean was completely out. And the room was right there. Just…right…there.

"Get it done, Sam," he muttered, flinging open the car-door with a groan and hoisting himself to his feet. Once he'd started, he couldn't stop, or he might not get going again.

The gashes on his body flared, but his knee was white-hot, and Sam set his teeth as he propelled himself to the room door, letting it support his weight while he fumbled with the key in the lock. Once the door was open, he pushed off the jamb back to the Impala, quickly scanning the lot for observers and finding none.

"Dean," he said, car-door ajar, voice prodding. "Dean!"

There was no response.

He planned again, reaching into the car to grab his brother's wrists, pulling him upright. Ignoring the agony of his injuries, Sam maneuvered Dean's legs onto the pavement, keeping both wrists ensnared in one giant hand.

A fireman's carry was out of the question, nor did Sam have the strength to carry his brother in his arms. He turned so that his back was to Dean and painfully bent his knees, favoring the bad one, lowering himself carefully until he could pull Dean's arms securely around his neck from behind.

When he was ready, Sam made sure of his balance and rose with a loud groan, staying low, his knees still flexed. He dragged his brother quickly into the room, piggyback, Dean's booted toes scraping across first walkway, then carpet until Sam gingerly lowered him onto the first bed, wincing with the strain on shoulders and legs.

Dean's boneless body canted to one side as Sam released his grip on his brother's wrists. Pivoting quickly, Sam tried to ease him down, but pain blazed in his injured knee and he let it buckle beneath him, falling hard to the floor while Dean collapsed into the pillows.

Sam bit back a string of oaths. It was long moments before the agony subsided enough for him to struggle up and lift his brother's legs onto the bed, straightening his body until Dean at least _looked_ comfortable.

The gash on the older man's forehead had indeed stopped bleeding, but not before blood had snaked its way across his face and down his neck, rivulets of red marking him like a map, and the accompanying knot was pretty damn big.

Then there was his shoulder.

Steeling himself, Sam trekked out to the Impala, snagging the big first-aid kit from the trunk. He thought briefly about re-parking the car, but a glance around the nearly-empty lot easily convinced him it was unnecessary.

Limping arduously back inside, he headed to the bathroom for a washcloth and towel. He tossed them both into the sink and let the water run, thoroughly soaking them. The towel he wrung out somewhat, just enough so that it didn't drip much when he went back to his brother's bedside.

Dean moaned slightly but did not awaken when Sam tugged up the bottom of his t-shirt, working the towel up under it, positioning it gently but securely over the bloodied slashes across Dean's upper body.

The wounds needed tending, of course, but they seemed to be clotting, and Sam was fast running out of steam. The wet terrycloth would keep them fresh and offer some protection until he could see to them properly.

The claw-marks across his own body also appeared to be clotting, but the pain from his knee made Sam mildly nauseous. He swallowed hard, face screwed tight with concentrated effort to get past the malaise, then gently bathed his brother's pale face, the white washcloth rapidly becoming pink as he turned it again and again, at length wiping away the last of the blood.

Dean didn't stir, not even when Sam placed the ice-pack against the giant knot on his forehead.

"Best I can do for now, Dean," Sam murmured, letting the bloodstained washcloth drop unheeded to the floor as he lurched toward his own bed.

There was just enough time for him to stretch out cautiously on his back atop the covers before sleep claimed him.

* * *

_Comments are welcome. I hope you'll look for Chapter 3 on Tuesday._


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanks for reading this far! I expect there will be five chapters, so after this one, we're more than halfway home. _

_I'm especially grateful to those who've left such encouraging comments—most of you know how much I appreciate them. And, dear anons, while I haven't been able to say it personally, thanks to you, too! (krimson, that means for both of them!)_

**DOGGED**

**Chapter Three**

Dean's nose had bled sometime while he slept, leaving rust-colored smears on the graying cotton of the pillowcase and a crusty trail across his cheek, like old war-paint. It was the least of his worries, concern for Sam nudging him out of exhausted, dreamless unconsciousness, prying open eyelids bruised and swollen to focus on his little brother, who lay splayed across the other bed.

Sam slept slack-jawed on his back, only the pained hitch in his breathing belying his injuries.

The lights were off, but varied half-moons of sunshine spilled onto the carpet beneath the folds of the thick drapes on the window, suffusing the room with a pale gray glow.

_Huh. Half-moons of sunshine._ The corner of Dean's mouth tugged upward.

Long experience allowed him to guess it was late morning, the estimate given more weight when he heard the maid's cart squeak past on the walkway outside. God, he hoped Sam had put the "do not disturb" card on the door-handle.

His head hurt like a sonofabitch, and his shoulder wasn't much better.

Dean levered himself up on one elbow with a groan, keeping his injured arm close to his body.

_What the--?_

He cautiously fished the damp towel out of his t-shirt, grimacing at the sting of its slide across flayed skin. Dean took a quick peek, wincing at the bloody mess, remembering suddenly that whatever that damned thing in the woods had been, Sam had taken the worst of its attack. The thought was enough to get him upright, swinging his feet over the side of the bed and onto the floor, blinking wide to clear the muzziness in his head.

Turning on the bedside lamp helped finish the trick, but he cursed under his breath at what it revealed.

Sam's shirts lay in red-soaked tatters against his chest, the dried blood stiffening the fabric like some sort of gruesome glue. The worst of the apparent damage was on Sam's right side, farthest away and hard to get at, especially when Dean's brain knocked hard against his skull every time he tried to lean forward.

"Fuck it," he murmured. Wasn't like Sammy was ever going to wear those shirts again.

He retrieved the little knife from his back pocket, noting for the first time that they were both still fully dressed, down to their mud-spattered boots.

He had no recollection of their return to the motel after what happened in the clearing, only vague flashes of walking and hurting and bleeding, and Sam had clearly been no better off. Somehow, though, his little brother had been able to get them both to the relative safety of their room.

Dean inserted the knife-blade into one of the rents in Sam's t-shirt, gripping the material above it firmly for tension and slicing through the fabric toward the bottom, exerting extra pressure at the hem to cut clean through. The shirt was stuck to Sam's skin at his right side and up on his chest; with a quiet groan Dean moved to the bathroom for water and towels and washcloths, snagging the first-aid kit on his return to the bedside.

Gently he dabbed at the worst of the blood, Sam still so out of it he didn't even stir until the shirt had been eased free and Dean put a warm hand against uninjured flesh, holding him down.

"It's peroxide," Dean warned softly, tipping the bottle over the slashes on Sam's chest first, the bubbling liquid spilling across him into other wounds, pink foam dripping down his sides to soak into the towels Dean had bundled there.

Sam came awake with a surprised gasp but lay stoically, eyes fixed on the ceiling while Dean tended him, merciless with the peroxide and the wet cloths until he was satisfied that the grime in the open wounds had been laved away.

"I can do this myself, you know," Sam finally grunted, and Dean barked a laugh, the noise banging off his fragile skull.

"Yeah, you're a tough guy. I noticed the great job you did of that last night."

"Got us back here, didn't I?"

Dean paused in the midst of reaching for the bacitracin, chose to let the comment go unanswered. Instead, he squeezed the ointment into the claw-marks on Sam's shoulder, his brother hissing at the cold contact.

"These look ugly and I'll bet they burn like blazes, but they aren't really that deep," Dean muttered, intent on his job. "A little gauze and another day or two, you'll be just fine. You want any stitches? Might put one or two right here."

"Uh." Sam craned his neck painfully to see. "No."

"You hurt anywhere else?"

"Dinged my knee some more." The younger man's response was soft, his eyes flickering closed. "You?"

"Nah," Dean lied. "I already took care of it."

"'Kay. Good."

And, like that, Sam was out again.

Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Dean cracked an ice-pack and settled it firmly across his brother's bad knee. Then he emptied the bacitracin tube into Sam's wounds and started another, spreading the ointment with careful skill until Sam was pretty much slathered in the stuff.

He paused briefly to pop some aspirin, leaving the bottle on the nightstand within easy reach, then ripped open packets of gauze and draped the bandages lightly over Sam's injuries. After tacking down the corners with bits of tape, Dean leaned back to assess his work. It was then that he noticed the odd marks arced along both sides of his brother's throat.

_What the hell?_

He grabbed the bedside lamp, holding it closer so he could see, taking care not to burn bare skin with the heat.

There were parentheses of bruises around Sam's trachea, two curved rows of small, purpling dots. The skin was unbroken, but the blood-darkened blotches told the story clearly: Canine teeth had taken hold of Sam's windpipe and gripped it tight.

_Jesus Christ. That thing had had Sammy by the throat, and might have killed him._

It took Dean a moment to comprehend that he had stopped breathing.

_Might have killed him, but didn't._

He was horrified by the realization, and terrified by what it might mean. Frantically, he looked to his brother for some kind of clue, some understanding, but Sam's face was lax with sleep and offered no help.

_Jesus Christ_, Dean thought again, heart thundering in his chest. _What in the name of everything holy had happened to his little brother? _

* * *

He couldn't think, couldn't get his brain to wrap around any idea that would explain why whatever had been out in those woods might have had its supernatural fangs dug into Sam's throat and not ripped it out. Couldn't come up with any _good_ idea, anyway—nothing that didn't have to do with Sam coming back wrong, infected by some demonic contagion or curse, ready to go dark-side at the flip of a switch.

Frustrated and hurting, Dean ran a hand over his face, wincing when he found the knot on his forehead again and reaching once more for the aspirin.

There had to be some other explanation, a reasonable one. With the concussion, he just couldn't think of it. Couldn't think at all, really. But Sam would figure it out, tell him what it all meant….

He waited with edgy impatience for his brother to reawaken, fuming without knowing quite why, except that he'd been pissed all week and now he was even more pissed. He knew his anger had to do with loss of control—_oh, God, so _many_ things out of control!_—and he'd chosen to take it all out on his little brother. Who, by the way, had become some sort of big damn target for a whole host of demons, messing around doing God knows what with that fucking Ruby, keeping secrets from Dean that he had no right to keep.

Damn it, Sam was smarter than that! If he wasn't careful, he was going to throw away everything—his life, Dean's life. Dean's sacrifice….

_The hell with it._

Dean used the time to do a hundred things, most of them related to being impatient and beaten up and thoroughly ticked off. First he bagged their trashed shirts; threw the bag in the pile to go out to the Impala, so they could ditch it once they'd moved on from Kentucky. Then, after he showered, he cleaned and dressed the gouges in his shoulder—like Sam's injuries, they weren't exceptionally deep, but they hurt like the dickens and they'd cut closer to the tattoo than he'd like. He'd have been happier not to have them at all; they'd pull as they healed.

He finished up the second tube of bacitracin, patting the ointment carefully into the raw, open wounds; he'd used the last of the gauze on Sam, so he pulled on a clean, loose-fitting t-shirt, leaving the long scratch-marks otherwise uncovered.

He checked Sam, who appeared to be sleeping normally. Built a friggin' poor sandwich using mustard and the last of the pickles from the day before, adjusted the temperature on the heating unit and then turned on the television, flipping through channels with ill-tempered disinterest until he fell into a light doze. By the time he woke again, he judged it was late afternoon, early evening. His stomach was growling.

Sam was at the little table across the room, button-down shirt left open over the bandages that swathed him, tapping quietly on the computer, peering intently at the screen. He had the heating pad draped over his bad knee.

"Hey," Dean murmured drowsily, eyes squinted half-closed. "Y'all right?"

Sam closed the laptop with a snap and nodded, shrugging one cautious shoulder. "A little stiff. Knee's the worst."

"You wrap it?"

"Maybe later. What about you?"

"I'm good."

Dean scrubbed his face with rough palms, sitting up a little quicker than was wise and watching the room revolve around him momentarily. While he waited for the carnival ride to end, he focused again on Sam, memory returning in a flood.

"What the fuck, Sam?"

Sam looked at him in confusion as Dean shot up off the bed—_screw the carousel!_—confronting his brother angrily.

"That thing out there—and that was no black dog, that's for damn sure—whatever the hell it was, it had you down and was ready to rip your throat out. What happened?"

"Uh, it didn't?" Sam replied, feigning innocence, knowing he was screwed.

"Don't hand me that shit, Sammy," Dean said, voice savage. "You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"You're sorry it didn't kill me?" Sam asked incredulously, and the older man's response was fierce.

"No, but I'm sure wondering why it didn't."

Sam felt his own anger skyrocket suddenly. _Damn it, he was fucking tired of his brother's incessant paranoid suspicions_. "I don't know, Dean," he sniped sarcastically, voice rising. "Maybe it finally got a good whiff and recognized that I'm supposed to be its new master. Demon-King here, remember? That what you're thinking?"

Dean drew back, momentarily disconcerted, his concern having come out a lot more accusatory than he'd intended.

_Screw it, and screw Sam's high-strung sensitivity._

"Get over yourself, Sam!" he barked. "I'm just thinking that you've been keeping pretty close company with Ruby lately, and I don't know what the hell the two of you're talking about."

Sam rose abruptly, heating pad falling to the floor as he stood toe-to-toe with his older brother, the cords in his neck taut.

"It's _Hell_, Dean. We're talking about Hell, and how to keep you out of it!"

But Dean wasn't about to give ground, not on this.

"There's more to it than that, and you know it!" he replied vehemently. "_I_ know it! Sammy, I've told you time and again, she's a demon, and she's working you, man!"

"And I've told _you_, Dean, I know what I'm doing!" Sam shouted in return. "You're just gonna have to trust me on this."

"This isn't _about_ trust, it's about knowing better. Sam, please—the next time she shows up, please just send the little bitch packing!"

"Dean, Ruby's got nothing to do with why that thing out in the woods let me—"

The knock at the door was completely unexpected. They exchanged startled looks, Dean quickly laying hands on a pistol and Sam doing the same.

Dean raised a finger, then signaled with a tilt of his head. Sam nodded. He stashed the gun in the back of his jeans, making a hasty effort to button his shirt as he limped to the window, peering cautiously through the curtain at their visitor.

It was a woman, mid- to late- forties, about five-two, five-three. A little pudgy. She was dressed in jeans and a burgundy turtleneck, and wore her dark hair tied back in what Sam guessed was an attempt to appear youthful, but the haggard expression on her face effectively nipped that effort in the bud. She looked tired. Tired and extremely afraid.

Dean had moved to the other side of the door, pistol in hand, and Sam shot him a look, shaking his head slightly. They didn't know her. Dean frowned, and jerked his chin up, giving Sam the go-ahead.

Outside, the woman had raised her hand to knock again when Sam wrenched the door open.

"Oh!" she exclaimed.

"Can I help you?" he asked cautiously.

Her eyes had widened in alarm, and now a worry-line appeared between them as she gaped up at him, at the bandages that covered him, one trembling hand springing to her throat, the other clutching protectively across her ribs.

"I—I didn't think—" she stammered, obviously at a loss.

Sam glanced past her into the parking lot, down both sides of the walkway, but the woman seemed to be alone. He opened the door a little wider.

"Excuse me?"

"I didn't think you'd actually be here, but…." Her voice was hesitant with disbelief as the hand at her throat reached out to him, fingers almost brushing the bandage on his shoulder, the tattoo on his chest. "It's really you. How could I have known?"

Without warning, her eyes rolled up into her head and she fainted into Sam's arms.

"Dean!" he hissed, knee torquing, wounds tearing painfully as he held her, tried to pull her into the room so they could get the door closed, take care of her, whoever she was. "A little help!"

Dean hurriedly stashed the gun in the back of his jeans, shutting the door as Sam twisted inside with his unanticipated burden, easing her limp form onto Dean's bed.

"What the hell?" Dean asked. "Who's this?"

"I don't know, man. I've never seen her before. Get some water."

The woman moaned, hand fluttering to her forehead as she came around, blinking up at them groggily for a moment before covering her eyes with the same hand.

"Oh, God, I must be going crazy," she murmured.

"Dean, get her some water!" Sam ordered again, and Dean complied quickly, snagging a plastic cup from the little stack in the bathroom, filling it half-way with tepid water from the tap.

In a moment he had returned, holding out the cup for Sam to take, hesitating when he saw his brother's pale face.

"You okay?"

Sam grimaced, trying to ignore the stinging pain where the claws had raked him, the reawakened throbbing in his knee. "Yeah, I'm fine. Here, let me have that."

He took the cup from Dean and cautiously sat beside the woman on the bed, facing her, reaching out to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. He considered it a plus when she didn't jerk away from his touch.

"Are you all right? Can you take this?" he asked gently.

She made a tiny noise in her throat and removed the hand from her eyes, then labored upright on her elbows to take the cup from him, sipping at it timidly.

"Thanks," she said after a moment. "What happened?"

He smiled down at her, setting the empty cup on the nightstand. "I think you fainted. I don't get that reaction from women very often."

Behind him, Dean snorted, and the woman's gaze flew to him over Sam's shoulder, the line between her brows deepening with apprehension.

"Who are you?" Dean asked curtly. "What are you doing here?"

"Um."

Sam's lips thinned at his brother's rudeness. "I don't think I know you, ma'am, but am I right that you think you know me?"

She pulled her eyes from Dean to look again at Sam, nodding, sitting up on the bed as she did so.

"Um, yes—in a way, I guess. I came here looking for you."

"Who are you?" Dean asked again, the tone of his voice making it clear he didn't intend to ask a third time.

"My name's Evonne," she replied. "Evonne Craig."

Dean blinked. "Dude. Like Batgirl?"

For a moment she seemed as nonplused as he was, but then she smiled feebly, and Sam knew she'd heard the question before.

"I spell my name with an 'e,'" she clarified, "and I've never worn a cape."

Dean returned quickly to the business at hand. "Never heard of you, lady, and I still don't know what you're doing here." He cut his eyes to his brother, watched Sam wince again, massaging his knee in pain. "Sammy, get over here."

Dean grabbed him by the open collar of his shirt and pulled him off the bed, parking him firmly in a chair well out of the stranger's reach.

"Dean!" Sam protested. "What the—"

"Sit!" Dean ordered, punching a finger in Sam's face. "Stay!" Then he wheeled again on Evonne. "You, speak."

The woman's glance darted between the brothers.

"This is going to sound crazy," she said hesitantly.

Sam tried a benevolent smile, but Dean loomed over her, scowling.

"Try us," he grated.

She had to clear her throat to get started. "I'm not sure where to begin. A few years ago, I was in a car accident. I broke several bones, had internal bleeding, but the big thing was that I fractured my skull. For a while, they weren't sure I was going to live."

"But you did," Dean supplied tersely, earning a chastising glare from his brother. "And then…?"

"And then I started dreaming things," Evonne said, turning again to Sam, "and last week I dreamed about _you_."

Dean felt his mouth go suddenly dry and the room temperature drop abruptly. Sam saw him coil, ready to leap at her or, God, _kill_ her, and put out a quick arm.

"Dean!" he barked.

Evonne started, oblivious to her danger, and for one split second Dean was ready to ignore Sam's outburst.

"Dean," he heard Sam say again, softer this time. "We need to listen."

Dean pulled in air, long and slow, ratcheting his tension down a quarter of a notch, eyes riveted on the woman's, still prepared for them to go black, or for smoke to billow from her mouth.

_Or for her to pull a knife and stab Sam in the back, Dean watching helplessly as she killed his little brother dead beyond redemption. _

He gasped, taking another, harsher breath, and Evonne faltered, gaze catching Sam's quickly.

The younger Winchester nodded at her encouragingly.

"You're the one who called the sheriff and told him to look for a body at Saymill Pond."

It was not a question, but Evonne bobbed her head in response.

"The dreams are never good," she continued, voice quavering, "and sometimes they don't make sense. Things I don't recognize, people I don't know—but always, something bad is happening. And eventually I hear that, after I've dreamed it, the 'something bad' actually happens."

"Like what?" Sam prompted, voice gentle.

"Things we'd know about. Things that can prove what you're saying is true," Dean added brusquely, and Evonne's face crumpled at the memories.

"That bridge up north," she whispered, "except that I didn't know it until I saw it on the news. That porch, with the students…it's like the dreams come with messages, but I don't always get them the first time. Those—I couldn't do anything about them, because there was nothing I could recognize before it was too late."

Sam threw a look at his brother, silently asking for the lead, the slight tightening of Dean's mouth ceding his unhappy approval. "You said you don't always get the message the first time. Does that mean you have the dreams more than once?"

"Sometimes, yes. Not the dog getting hit by the car, or that man in the small-plane crash out in Nevada, but sometimes a dream is so intense and so compelling that I know it's extremely important. That I _have_ to get the message. Then it's like I get more than one chance to understand. I dreamed three times about the bridge. Three has been the most."

"Until now?" Sam guessed aloud, and Evonne nodded hesitantly, as though ashamed. "How many times have you dreamed about me?"

Her eyes sought his, then skittered away to find Dean before coming back to Sam. "Six. That's how I could find you—each time, it was worse, but each time I understood a little more about where to reach you."

"What's in the dream, Evonne?"

She shivered, clasping her arms tightly about herself. "Blood and hatred and rage and darkness. I—I can't take it any more, Sam. Something terrible is going to happen, and you have to stop it."

The brothers exchanged fleeting looks again, Sam breathing in deeply through his nose.

"Can you tell me what it is?" he asked. "What's the message for me?"

Her eyes flew again to Dean, troubled, confused. "I'm not sure," she said. "Like I said, there's red and dark and anger, and a lot I still don't understand. I hear dogs—dogs barking. Snarling. And there are words, but I don't think they're English."

"Do you remember them?"

She paused, concentrating on recall. "They sound like 'ootselly duh ayoo lee.'"

Dean chuffed. "'Out the cellar door, Julie'? What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"_Ayoo_ lee," Evonne repeated crisply, saving Sam the trouble. "That's what it sounds like, anyway. And I only have a feeling about _what_ it means, but I know for sure _who_ it means. It's Sam, and I think it means that Sam is the special child."

The gun was back in Dean's hand in an instant, a fistful of the woman's hair in the other as he pressed the barrel hard against her temple. Evonne gave a tiny shriek before terror stole her voice.

"Are you one of them?" Dean shouted angrily, pulling the hammer back. "Did Lilith send you? Because, lady, you'd better have brought back-up!"

"Dean!" Sam cried, grabbing at his brother's wrist, pinioning it, the contact filling Dean's green eyes with disbelief and betrayal. Sam backed off at once, stunned at his own stupidity, lowering his voice soothingly. "Dean, she's not a de—she isn't one. She wouldn't call me that any more, if she was. Please, just calm down!"

"What _would _she call you, Sam? Tell me what she'd call you!" Suddenly he was gasping, gulping in great, shuddering drafts of air that made him light-headed, dark spots dancing before his eyes. Heat flooded his face, sweat breaking instantly on his brow, and for a moment Dean thought he might pass out. His grip in the woman's hair tightened, and she cried out in fear.

"Dean, please," Sam cajoled earnestly, patting the space between them, jerking his head at Evonne's trembling form. "Just knock it off. Please. It's all right—you've got to trust me on this."

Another tense moment passed as Dean regained his composure, controlled his breathing, his own body trembling while the first surge of adrenaline waned. _What had Sam been thinking, doing something like that—coming between him and this stranger? Taking her side against his own brother, putting them both in danger?_

He tried desperately to read an explanation on Sam's face, to gain some understanding from his eyes. His brother looked shocked and sorry and distressed, just the way he ought to. Just the way Sam _would_.

_All right, Sammy. All right._

His panic subsiding, Dean blinked fiercely, clearing his vision. Then he swallowed hard and relented, uncocking the pistol and releasing his grip on the woman's hair.

"Evonne, we're sorry," Sam told the woman urgently as she threw herself back up on the bed against the headboard, eyes round with horror. "We're sorry if we frightened you, but there are things going on that you can't possibly understand, and—"

She surprised them both when she interrupted him, anger flaring through her terror. "Can't understand? I told you that in the first place, Sam—I don't understand _any_ of this." She threw another glance at Dean's ravaged expression, averting her eyes quickly. "Look, I drove across three states to find you and deliver a message, all right? You're the special one, Sam, and I don't know anything more. Now, please—stay the hell out of my dreams!"

She made a show of bravado as she rose from the bed, but it failed her immediately. She eased past Dean, threw another hasty look at Sam, and ran out the door.

Still breathing heavily, avoiding his brother's scathing glare, Dean gave himself another moment to rally by closing the door behind her. Then he checked the chamber on the gun and tossed it onto the bedspread, where it bounced gently.

Sam's next salvo was immediate and furious. "What the hell is _wrong_ with you, Dean?"

"I already told you, Sam," Dean retorted, back on the offensive at once. "You know, in all these years, I never had any trouble facing evil things most people don't even believe in—wendigos, rawheads, vampires, whatever. But these days, I don't even know what's comin' any more, except that most of it seems to be comin' after _you_."

"You think it's my fault?" Sam accused. "You think I want _any_ of this?"

But Dean was still in no mood to listen, plowing right on as he paced the small room. "Demons gunning for you, psychics dreaming about you, God-knows-what gnawing on your throat like you were a chew-toy—fuck, it was bad enough when all we had to worry about was ol' Yellow-Eyes, but this? This is a thousand times worse! What the hell's gonna be next, huh, Sammy? Just tell me what's next!"

His voice dropped suddenly, all steam gone, and Dean shook his head. "It's too much. So listen to me, Sam. I want you out of it when I'm gone, you understand me? I want you to go back to school, get out of the business. I can't be—I can't be where I'm going to be, and know you're here all alone, not with all this crap. Don't make me do that. Please."

It set Sam back, left his mouth working without sound for a moment, his heart twisting.

"Dean, no," he said finally. "I told you before, it's more than just hunting now. We're at war, and I can't turn my back on that."

"It could _kill_ you, Sam."

"It already has! And once you're gone, do you think I really care?"

Dean turned haunted eyes to him, then with a wordless growl, grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Sam asked.

"I'm going to Hell, Sam!"

"Dean!"

Dean bit back harsher words, glaring at his little brother.

"I'm going for a drive, all right?"

"Ditching me already?" However Sam intended it, the question came out pointed, disparaging, and for a moment Dean was ready to deck him.

"I'm sure you'll do just fine," he replied with a mocking smile, slamming the door on his way out.

* * *

Dean parked for a while out by Saymill Pond, with some vague notion of keeping little Amanda Apley company, until he realized how stupid that was—not like she was gonna care, and with his luck, Five-O'd find him lurking around the body. Besides, babysitting a corpse was a hell of a lot more morbid than he cared to be.

So he drove around for an hour or so, wasting gas, also a stupid thing to do, prices at the effing pump going up daily. Wasn't like he'd be around to pay the bill, though, so what the hell.

Thing was, the other bill coming due was giving him some trouble, and there wasn't a lot he could do about it. Not a lot except bitch at his brother, apparently.

Dean did not regret having traded his life for Sam's—knew for a fact he'd do it again without a moment's hesitation. It wasn't the dying that bothered him, not really, and truth be told, he'd purposely avoided thinking about what it was going to be like to spend eternity burning in Hellfire. Or whatever the hell happened in Hell. So that wasn't it, either.

It was leaving Sam alone that screwed the pooch.

Not that the kid wasn't the third-best hunter Dean had ever seen, behind him and their dad. If Dean had to bet good money, he'd put it on Sammy over the bad guys any day of the week.

But there was a lot going on with his little brother right now that just didn't make sense, and that left Dean with an icy pit in his stomach because he'd _always _understood Sam, could count on one hand the times Sam had blindsided him in their entire lives.

Before the deal, anyway. Now, Sam confounded him nearly every day, to the point where Dean almost wasn't surprised anymore when Sam surprised him. And demons were to blame.

That bastard Yellow-Eyes, tormenting him by planting the idea that maybe Sammy wasn't really Sammy any more.

That bitch Ruby, whispering things into Sam's ear that Sam kept concealed, secret from his brother.

And almost every fucking demon they'd encountered since the Gate opened, homing in on Sam like he had a giant-sized bull's-eye painted on his giant-sized back.

All things considered? If Dean could change any decision he'd made in his life, it might be the one where he went after Sam at Stanford and brought him back to hunting. Change that, and maybe Sammy had a chance at being demon-free, and then maybe Dean had a chance at dying a happy man.

Except Sam seemed hell-bent on staying in the business, and whether he would be killing demons or consorting with them, Dean really couldn't tell.

_Fuck, he didn't want to leave Sam alone!_

Dean slammed a hand hard against the steering wheel, the jolt bringing him back to reality, where he found himself once again on Kelton Road, once again passing the abandoned lane to Saymill Pond.

_Just…fuck_.

He headed back to Grangerford, not ready to call it a night, aiming for the bar he'd seen just down the road from the motel.

The lights were still on in their room when he passed, and something clenched briefly in his chest. It hadn't been fair to cut out on Sam that way, particularly since he was still hurting, but Dean was pretty sure that if he'd stayed in the motel room another second, he'd have clocked his little brother out of sheer cussedness. Better for them both that he get a little air. Get a little beer. Get a little….

The bar was relatively crowded, but Dean managed to claim a booth toward the back, settling in for the long haul. He knew he was being an ass—hell, he'd been an ass for the better part of a week, now. The fact that Sam was returning the favor in kind didn't really excuse his own behavior, but Jesus, didn't a death sentence merit a guy some kind of pass in the Biggest Jerk competition?

He'd just made eye contact across the room with a couple of giggling barely-legal types in short skirts and low-cut tees when Evonne Craig slumped into the bench opposite him, beer slopping out of the mug she held haphazardly, drenching the front of her blouse.

"Whoopsie," she said unrepentantly. "Batgirl got a little messy, there. Where's Sam?"

Clearly, the woman was looped. Dean raised an eyebrow at her, moving the pitcher out of harm's way. "You're the psychic—you tell me."

"Okay, then, here's another question: Why are you such an ass? God, no wonder your brother has issues with you."

"Who says he's my brother?"

He tried to keep the question casual, but she laughed and tapped a lazy finger against her temple.

"I'm the psychic, remember?"

"Yeah. So you said."

They both took long draws on their beers, Evonne wiping the corners of her mouth with her thumb and forefinger, belching daintily. Across the bar, the Giggle Sisters had moved to the jukebox, dancing together while some techno crap played, still casting sly come-hithers over their shoulders at him, but Dean crossed them off his mental list of potential things to do. He had the bad feeling he wasn't going to get rid of Evonne any time soon.

"They aren't worth your time anyway, Dean," the older woman said, her smile mocking when he shot her a dark look. "Don't be so ugly. It's not like I asked to have my skull split open so this so-called 'gift' could crawl in. It's made my life hell, let me tell you. I didn't drink so much before the accident, for one thing. But hey, whatever kills the pain, you know?"

She looked at him squarely, assessing, then nodded. "Yeah, you know. Doesn't take a psychic to see _that_. And I'd bet Sam would be happier without _his_ gift, too."

"Sammy's just fine," Dean growled, hackles rising, the knee-jerk need to defend his brother from her vague, left-handed accusation outweighing any ethical choice he might have made not to lie.

"You're the only one who gets to find fault with him, that it?" Evonne asked. "He's your personal whipping-boy? I've got a big sister like you, Dean. Well, she's not as _possessive_ as you are—it never bothered her if anyone else gave me shit, so long as she still got _her_ chance. Doled it out in spades, though, so in that respect, the two of you are alike. And since the accident, she's gotten even better at it."

"Yeah, woe is you. Lady, you don't know jack about me or my brother, so why don't you knock it off?"

"What, the chip on your shoulder? Why don't you give me a break? I came all this way to try to find you, try to give you a warning, and all I get from you is a ration of crap. Well, screw it—" She winced suddenly, eyes unfocused, beer-mug tipping dangerously in her hand. "And screw Ava, too, whoever she is."

Dean swallowed hard, freaked out all over again, glaring at her across the table as she raised the mug and gulped sloppily from it. "Who the hell are you, anyway?" he asked, voice low and dangerous.

Completely oblivious to his tone—or maybe just ignoring it—she reached for the pitcher and poured unsteadily for both of them. "I'm Batgirl, remember?"

Two hours later, they were still drinking, although Dean really needed to drain the snake and Evonne was well past her limit. They'd advanced to shots, and she'd told him about the other fallout from her accident, beyond the new ability to witness horrific things that had yet to happen—told Dean about the husband who'd abandoned her after 18 years; the boss who'd cut her loose from the company she'd helped start; the string of eager, self-serving shrinks who'd treated her like a lab rat. Told him about the sister who'd gotten more shrill and impatient, mocking her cruelly, yet inexplicably envious of Evonne's 'gift.' The accident's aftermath had been a nightmare in more ways than one.

It was a sad, pathetic tale from a sad, pathetic woman, and Dean really couldn't bring himself to care. He'd only listened because she wouldn't shut up, and he had no place better to be. _Better than cryin' into his beer alone_. So he sat across the table from her, half-wasted, struggling to focus on her sob-story, grunting occasionally in feigned understanding when she looked to him for sympathy.

Thing was, he realized after a while, he understood her, too—part of her, anyway, the part where she felt like a freak, out of place in a world that worshipped 'normal.' God knew there'd never been a time in his own life when he hadn't felt the exact same way. But Christ, at least he'd never pissed and moaned about it like she did. Had he?

Dean snorted. _Nah_.

He watched Evonne's head dip toward the table and reached out quickly, snagging a shot glass out of the way just in time to keep her from banging down onto it. She never noticed, more asleep than awake, laying her cheek on the sticky table-top amongst the detritus of mugs and glasses strewn across it, murmuring incomprehensibly.

She made a wretched, pitiable picture, and Dean blearily rubbed the heel of his hand into his eye, frowning, disturbed at feeling disturbed.

_Jesus, what the hell was happening to him? Must be channelin' Sammy_.

Somewhere along the line, after the fifth beer or the third shot, he'd shifted from sneering at the woman to having some compassion for her. She hadn't asked to be a freak, it had just happened.

Kinda like Sammy hadn't asked for his visions, hadn't asked for whatever lured Yellow-Eyes to him, hadn't asked for much of anything, really, except a chance to live his life.

And that was pretty fucked up, through no fault of his own.

Nobody's fault, really, although Dean could've done a better job at looking after him. Didn't need to have dragged his brother away from school, away from his girl, away from a bright future back into the darkness of hunting because of his own compulsion to have his family together. Fuck it, how jacked up was that?

"Your mom going to be all right?"

He jerked his head up to find the waitress standing beside their table, and didn't really know how to answer the question. Instead, he stood, pulling some bills from his wallet and tossing them onto the drink tray. He had no idea what the tab was, but the waitress seemed pleased. Gave him a smile and a wink and headed back to the bar.

He prized Evonne out of the booth, grabbed her purse and snugged her to his side, her legs too wobbly to support her weight, then maneuvered them both out of the bar and into the Impala. God, how many times had he done this exact thing over the years? Different intentions, sure—he had no interest in screwing this dowdy, middle-aged drunk. But usually? Hell, there'd been hundreds of women—maybe thousands, although he was a little too muzzy to do the math. Twenty-nine years old, 365 days in a year, carry the four…kinda pathetic when he thought about it. Thank God he was in no shape to think about it.

_Fuck_.

Careful driving and a lot of experience got him back to the motel without incident, and he rifled through Evonne's purse for her key. Number eight, five doors down and around the corner from their own room, where the light was still on and poor Sammy was probably still on the Internet looking for clues about whatever the hell had been out in those woods. _That, or surfing for porn. _Dean couldn't help but laugh.

He carried Evonne into her room and deposited her and the purse with a minimum of bother onto the bed, rolling her onto her stomach in case she puked. Light from the parking lot spilled in through the open door, falling across her face, and she muttered when he removed her shoes, rousing enough to blink stupidly at him with one eye.

"You gonna be all right?" he asked, and she muttered again, waving her hand vaguely from where it dangled near the floor.

"Wa'r."

He got a cup from the bathroom and filled it, frowning at the sense of déjà vu, then snorting when he remembered he'd done this exact thing for her just a few hours ago. _God, he'd known the woman less than a day and already they had habits._

By the time he set the water down on the nightstand, Evonne was snoring, so he tossed the spare blanket over her and stumbled out of the room, ready to close the door firmly behind him. She was a big girl and could take care of herself. He already had one freaky-ass special child on his hands; sure as hell didn't need two.

But then he drew up short.

_Dammit_.

He gusted a sigh, then went back into the room and searched through Evonne's purse again, a bottomless pit of crap, where the hell were her—oh, got 'em. Dean snaked out the keys and set the purse on the nightstand, relocating the room-key and tucking it into his back pocket before heading out once again.

Finding the road deserted and his need urgent, he paused briefly to piss against a telephone pole set well off the pavement. _Top dog in Grangerford, _Dean thought smugly, _markin' my territory._

The night was crisp, and the cold air helped rouse him as he walked the three blocks back to the bar. By the time he reached the parking lot, he could finally bring the symbol on the car-key into focus, so he knew what he was looking for.

Unlocking the little gray Kia, he started to climb into the driver's seat, halting abruptly at the conflict between his long legs, the steering column and the foot-well. _Jesus, how could anybody be that short?_ He fumbled for the release, then pushed the seat back, moving it all of four inches, finally cramming himself into the car and driving back to the motel with his knees bent practically up to his chin.

When he parked outside her room, Dean made sure to carefully readjust the seat, sliding it almost all the way forward before squeezing out from behind the steering wheel, unfolding himself awkwardly from the little car.

He let himself back into Evonne's room quietly, just long enough to leave all the keys where she could find them in the morning. Found her still snoring lightly, no evidence of psychic dreaming readily apparent.

For now, Evonne Craig slept the sleep of the just and the exceedingly drunk.

_Rock on, Batgirl._

When he left, the door locked automatically behind him.

* * *

_Comments are welcome. Please look for Chapter 4 on Friday._

_Shameless pandering and self-promotion: Sam might have gotten short shrift in this chapter, but he's naked in the next one. Honest!_


	4. Chapter 4

_Confessions and appreciation: As a reader, I find it very hard to look at works in progress, mostly because I like to appreciate the flow of a complete story. Tales are meant to be told, after all, from beginning to end, not in fits and starts. I get frustrated when writers don't post timely updates, because I lose the flow of what they've tried so hard to create. Consequently, I almost always read only completed works._

_As a writer, however, it is extremely gratifying and encouraging to know that there are brave souls out there willing to read a work in progress, trusting they will be updated regularly. I believe many stories would just dry up and blow away unfinished, were it not for these daring and generous individuals—without them, I know my own writing experience would not be as richly rewarding. _

_So, if you're reading this before the fifth and final chapter of "Dogged" gets posted, my hat is off to you, and I bow to you in gratitude. Thank you SO much, you intrepid reading-adventurer! I really appreciate you! Please look for Chapter 5 to be posted on Monday._

_And if you're reading this after "Dogged" is completed, thanks to __**you**__, too! Better late than never, and I hope you'll read all the way through the story. Thanks for getting this far._

**Dogged**

**Chapter Four**

Showering was torture, the hard water stinging cruelly against the flayed flesh of Sam's chest and shoulder and side, so he had to stand well out of the spray, making the process long and arduous. He managed to get his hair washed, though, and on the whole he felt a lot better for the experience.

Except they had no clean towels left. Nor any antiseptic ointment for the long claw-marks that scored his body. Nor any gauze, so he could tape them up again.

He stood for a long, amazed moment in the middle of the bathroom, water dripping down his naked body and puddling on the tiles at his feet. _Jesus, was there a single thing that could go right?_

His knee was throbbing painfully, and he hopped one-legged into the main room, almost losing his balance when he hit carpet, nearly face-planting onto Dean's bed. Which put Dean's duffel within reach, so Sam rifled through it, sniff-testing the t-shirt that came out and using it to dry off, patting carefully at the open wounds and avoiding his knee altogether. He rubbed vigorously at his sopping hair, then wadded the shirt up and stuffed it back into the duffel. Even if it came out again mildewed, his friggin' brother would probably never notice.

_Damn Dean, anyway_, Sam thought darkly as he lurched back to the bathroom for his clothes and the woefully inadequate first-aid kit. It was all he was willing to think, relative to the deal—for tonight, at least. The pain of knowing what lay ahead for both of them was almost too much to bear, and he needed a break from it. Particularly after all the shouting earlier.

He absently studied his reflection in the mirror; saw a face he almost didn't recognize any more, a body battered too many times to count. Saw the fresh bruises, the raw wounds, the old scars. Looked for his soul amidst the brown and blue of his eyes, but did not find it.

God, he prayed it was still in there somewhere. Prayed that it wasn't what the thing in the woods had been looking for; that it hadn't let him go because he no longer had one.

Vacant eyes looked bleakly back at him from the mirror, and for a moment Sam put his face in his hands, dismayed and afraid of what he had become. What he might yet become, especially without his brother's strong, unfailing light to help guide him.

_Oh, Dean…._

He shivered, still damp from the shower, the reaction bringing him back to reality. He found the elastic wrap and strapped it tightly around his knee, stepping awkwardly into fresh boxers and jeans before fishing out the heating pad and last remaining ice-pack and tossing them through the doorway onto his bed. Alternating treatment, and the swelling should go down—even more so, if he could find the aspirin. Sam shrugged into a clean t-shirt and limped back to his bed, taking the laptop with him.

In conjunction with what Evonne Craig had shared, the research he'd begun earlier that day helped him identify other possible sources of information, and he got quickly to work.

* * *

Hours later, he was still at it, legs stretched out on the bed, heating pad warming his knee, ice-pack long since melted and lying neglected nearby. Only a little of his color had come back, making the marks along his throat appear even darker. He rubbed at them absently as he pulled up another website, scanning it perfunctorily.

There was a noise at the door, and Sam reached quickly for the gun beside him before he heard Dean cough, key scraping in the lock as his bleary-eyed brother let himself in.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Did you, uh—" Dean scratched at the nape of his neck, wavering indecisively in the doorway. "Did you get dinner, or did you want to--?"

Sam flipped a hand at the mostly-empty pizza box atop the television before returning his attention to the computer screen. "I ate. Restocked the first-aid, too."

"'Kay. Good."

Dean closed the door, tossing the key onto the nightstand and wandering to the TV, poking at the leftovers, finally picking up a cold slice and taking a bite, chewing contemplatively.

"So. You're good?" he asked after a moment.

"I'm good, Dean. Working."

"Yeah, I see. Working on what, exactly?"

Sam looked up at him in disbelief. "Are you kidding me? We nearly got killed out there yesterday by something that has probably killed dozens of other people over the years; some psychic lands on our doorstep calling me a special child—I think I've got a few things I could be working on, Dean!"

"Sorry. Stupid question."

There was no way Sam could keep the derision out of his voice. "Yeah. Tell me about it. You're probably concussed, Dean—I can't believe you went out and got drunk."

"I am not _drunk_, Sam," Dean corrected carefully. "I have been _drinking_. With the psychic. And now I kind of think that she's the real deal."

Sam set his mouth, determined to remain calm, not at all surprised by his brother's sudden shift in attitude.

"I think she is, too," he replied gruffly. "I didn't find any media coverage about her—just about the accident, and a divorce notice—but that phrase she mentioned?"

"Julie out the cellar door?"

_So, Dean really _wasn't_ drunk. Just thick, as usual. Or pretending to be. All right, then._

Sam sat up straighter against the headboard, catching the heating pad as it slid off his knee and repositioning it carefully. He clicked back through his cache of web-pages to the site where he'd found the syllabary.

"Actually," he said, confident now of his pronunciation, "it's 'utselidv ayule.' Here, look—"

Dean parked himself on the other bed while Sam shifted the computer, pointing to a table of odd symbols on the screen.

"That Russian?" Dean asked, squinting at the curly capitals, and his brother's smile stopped just short of condescending.

"Kinda looks Cyrillic, but it isn't. And they're not letters, either—they're sounds. Some languages are written with characters that represent syllables," the younger Winchester explained, and Dean hid a grin by taking another bite of the cold pizza. _College Boy gettin' his geek on_.

Warming to his task, Sam rubbed his hands together eagerly. "Japanese is probably the best-known example, but there are others, including Cherokee. Or Tsalagi, like I said earlier. This is the syllabary for the written Tsalagi language, and these"—he pointed again, several times—"are the symbols for the phrase Evonne used. 'Utselidv ayule.' Dean, she was right. It means 'special child.'"

"In Cherokee?" Dean suddenly didn't feel like grinning any more, and Sam nodded.

"In Tsalagi, yes."

"And we just happen to be in old Tsalagi country, in the Devil's Valley, when she shows up calling you names in Tsalagi."

Sam nodded again. "Yes."

Dean worked a congealed piece of cheese around in his mouth for a moment before taking in a quick breath. "Then I guess we really are in the happy hunting ground, Sammy."

"Uh, there's more."

The pizza almost choked him on its way down the wrong pipe, and Dean coughed vehemently.

"God," he finally said, eyes watering, voice strangled. "Why is it I'm certain that 'more' is a bad thing?"

Sam groaned in disgust as Dean rose to toss the rest of the slice back into the box.

"Dean, could you not—gah, forget it."

"What?"

Sam raised his hands in surrender. "Look," he began, "we already knew some things about the recent victims before we got here the first time, right? I mean, except for Amanda Apley."

"Oh, this _is_ a bad thing," Dean said certainly, and Sam couldn't disagree.

"We knew that Cal Jesperson was a very successful CPA, and that Danny Milgrew had earned recognition in the beekeeping, uh, field. Right?"

"So?" Dean's eyebrows were drawn together tightly, his voice rife with suspicion.

Sam huffed a tired sigh. "So there was a clip on the local news tonight about Amanda. Who, it turns out, has been on Bell Valley TV from time to time since she was seven. It seems that she has quite a reputation locally as an accomplished violinist."

For the second time in just a few hours, Dean felt the panic spring to life, battering inside him, clawing at him, fighting to get out.

Running a hand back through his hair, oblivious, Sam poked with the other at the laptop keyboard. "Which means that all three of them were outstanding, somehow, and each could be considered a special child."

_Ohgod, ohgodohgod._

The rising wave of dread swept through him, pitching the floor beneath him, and Dean dropped blindly onto the bed, overwhelmed. He'd used a stick to examine the horrific brutality of Calvin Jesperson's wounds, but nothing could have gotten him to touch those on little Amanda Apley. It was Amanda, now, who came to mind unbidden, mocking him, her face horribly swollen and disfigured, throat laid open, the gashes on her body raw and teeming with maggots.

_As I am, so shall you be…_

"Was it—" His voice came out a husk, so Dean cleared his throat brusquely and tried again. "Was it hellhounds killed these people, Sammy?" he asked. "Did they make crossroads deals like me?"

Sam's head snapped up, his mouth agape. Never in his life had he heard his brother sound so lost, not even in the terrible days following their father's death; never seen his face look so bleak and desperate. Dean had gone pasty-white, and Sam wasn't sure he was even breathing.

"Dean, no, I don't think—"

He stopped, unwilling suddenly to give the man a pat answer, not on something so obviously poignant. And he wouldn't sugarcoat it, either, whatever the answer turned out to be—they both knew that Dean's death would be just as ugly, just as horrific as any they'd ever seen.

Sam kept his eyes on his brother as he considered the question rapidly, examining it from every angle before finally shaking his head.

"No, Dean," he said firmly. "Because they were all special, you mean? No, I don't think they were killed by hellhounds. Something else did it, something we haven't found yet. Those people didn't make deals—I think their talents, their gifts, were just garden-variety normal."

Despite his intentions, Sam could still hear the solace in his own voice and was grateful for it, especially when Dean turned desolate green eyes to him, anguished, stricken.

"Normal," he whispered. "I don't even know what that means, any more, Sammy."

* * *

Once he was out, Dean slept like a dead man, but Sam worked doggedly throughout the night, not even stopping for a quick nap. He found the legend in the darkest hours, on his second pot of coffee, almost missing it when blurry eyes read 'Tuskegee' instead of 'Tsalagi.'

The tale's origin was clearly the Chischono Valley, however, and the coincidence it contained was unmistakable. Once he decided on its meaning, Sam buried his face in his hands again, this time in relief. _Now it made sense._

He took another moment to compose himself, gaze drifting between the computer screen and the other bed where his brother lay. Then he gathered his wits and began planning his strategy.

He spent the time until Dean awoke on research, poring over page after page of lore and ritual and vocabulary, more than once tempted to call Bobby but always deciding against it. By dawn, Sam was confident he was on the right track, and before the sun had fully risen, he was certain he had the answer. All Bobby could do was confirm it, and there was no need to wake him for that.

Then he heard from Ruby, and she laughed at him.

"Yeah, Short-Bus will probably buy that, but I'm surprised at _you_, Sam. You know better. Like calls to like."

Again he found himself rubbing the marks on his neck, doubting, wondering. Feeling an odd thrill zing through him as he remembered the creature slavering over him, ready to rip out his throat, then backing off.

Ruby was even more contemptuous when he explained what he had planned. "Sam, the time for believing in fairy tales is over, and you need to be a big boy, now," she said, voice mocking. "Go ahead, try it. Call it Rumpelstiltskin, for all I care. But if it works, it'll be because you are what you are, not because of the words you choose."

_Demons lie_, Sam reminded himself coldly when she was gone.

He kept the volume on the computer low, paying special heed to tonalities and pitch, taking copious notes, marking his paper assiduously.

When Dean finally stirred, muttering something about sparks, Sam felt he was ready.

"Dean, get up," he urged.

"Wha'?" His older brother squinted up at him, then dragged a pillow over his face, rolling onto his other side and burrowing further beneath the blankets. "'S not even daylight."

Sam ripped the pillow away.

"It's nine-thirty. Come on, Dean, I mean it. Get up! I think I found our killer."

His brother sat up instantly, blinking wide-eyed to help him waken, grabbing a t-shirt and pulling it on quickly over his healing wounds.

"Tell me," he ordered tersely, stumbling from the bed and into the bathroom, snagging his jeans along the way. "Go, Sam!"

Sam spoke loudly over the splash.

"I found a legend that originated with the local Tsalagi tribe, way back before they were relocated to Oklahoma. It's about how Chischono Valley got its name, kind of like one of Rudyard Kipling's just-so stories."

The toilet flushed, and Dean worked quickly at the sink, sluicing cold water onto his face before using the towel, buttoning his jeans on his way back into the room.

"Coffee," he growled, and Sam pointed.

"There were two brothers," the younger Winchester began, reciting by heart while Dean poured. "And the younger one was beautiful and beloved by all, not only because he was fair and strong and well-muscled, but because he had the ability to charm the deer and birds and all the animals, who came when he called to them."

"So, kind of like with the unicorn, laying its head in the lap of a virgin," Dean observed, proffering the pot to Sam.

Sam started to shake his head, but changed his mind, tossing his mug across the little space, Dean catching it one-handed. "It isn't very fresh."

"It's your coffee, Sam, which means it sucks, but it's better than nothing. Go! Tell!"

"Okay, so, anyway, while the younger brother was much loved, bla bla bla, the older brother did not have his beauty, did not have his gift, and to the older one's shame, the people thought that he was weak and foolish."

Sam was too wrapped up in his story to notice Dean's fleeting look of discomfort as he passed the coffee mug back over.

"Ouch. Hot. Thanks."

Glad Sam apparently hadn't caught the irony, Dean chose to let it go unmentioned, focusing instead on the tangible. _Little brother had the coffee-jitters big-time._

"This isn't your first pot, is it?" he observed.

"Huh, no—third, maybe fourth. I've been up all night. Listen, would you?"

"Floor's yours, dude."

"All right, so, out of jealousy, Dean, the older brother kills the younger one, and that winter the village goes hungry."

"Wait—huh?"

Sam waved a hand, beckoning Dean to catch up. "Because the younger one couldn't call the deer and the birds any more. So the village casts the murderer out, and in time, he becomes a beast, and the woods where he roams take on his name. And—" Sam gusted a big sigh as he approached the legend's end—"what happened to him after the tribe set out on the Trail of Tears, no one is left alive to tell."

Dean took a sip of the scalding coffee, screwing up his face in bewilderment. "Guy's name was 'Devil'? That hardly seems fair—no wonder he turned out bad. Parents probably hated him from birth."

"What are you talking about?" It was Sam's turn to look confused, and Dean ticked the points off on his fingers.

"You said 'the woods where he roamed took on his name.' Place was called 'Chischono,' and that means 'devil,' so where's the confusion?"

"You're being too literal." _That was a first. _"The older brother became a beast, a 'devil,' and that's how the valley got its name. Because the beastly devil roamed. In the woods. That were in the valley. Got it?"

"Not really, no." Dean shook his head. "What makes you think that this poor devil-boy is our killer?"

Sam's face wrinkled with disgusted impatience. "Are you being intentionally lame this morning?"

Dean felt his hand tighten convulsively around the coffee mug, and he struggled for a moment with the urge to throw it across the room. "No, Sam!" he snapped acidly before leashing his temper. "I never _intend_ to be lame—sometimes I just _am_. I'm not the brilliant, gifted younger brother, remember?"

"Uh." Catching the older man's darkening scowl, Sam realized his error. "Sorry. Really. I've just been at this all night, and the coffee—sorry. Okay, here's why this legend describes our killer. First, the younger brother had a special gift, and all the victims we know about have been special, somehow."

Dean nodded reluctantly, so Sam continued. "Two, they were _brothers_, and the older one begrudged the younger one's beauty and talent. Remember what that woman said, the night we found Cal Jesperson's body? The county supervisor's wife—she said his sisters were envious of his success, right? And Danny Milgrew, the beekeeper, used to work with his brother, but they had a falling-out. I did some more checking, Dean—Danny got all the credit for developing that new breed of bee, even though he and his brother were still equal partners at the time. Partners on paper, anyway. Don't you think maybe the brother might've felt some resentment about missing out on the recognition?"

Dean was following easily, now. "Probably find that Amanda Apley's sister or one of her brothers wanted some of the attention she got with the violin—hell, maybe they all wanted more attention. Maybe that's why she was running away."

"Yeah, could be." Sam frowned thoughtfully, remembering. "The sister was on the newscast. Said she'd always admired the way Amanda could play, and wished it could be her."

"So you think Beastly Devil-Brother is killing off naturally-gifted people with grabby siblings, that it? I don't know, Sammy. There's an awful lot of guesswork, there—still seems a little light."

"That's 'cause I haven't told you the kicker, yet."

Their eyes met and held, Sam's lips growing thin.

"What is it?" Dean asked warily, knowing Sam would have saved the best for last.

"What the Tsalagi called the beast who roamed in the Chischono woods."

"Well…they called him 'devil,' right?"

"No. They called him the 'uyoi gitli,' Dean. It means 'evil _dog_.'"

There was silence for a moment, each of them considering the implications of the term, and then Dean sprayed coffee across the carpet as he lost his struggle not to laugh.

"'Bad Dog'?" he said, incredulous. "They called this jealous, brother-murdering psychopath 'Bad Dog'?"

Sam's face reddened. "Dean! Could you be serious? The Tsalagi believed that something they called an evil _dog_ roamed this valley, and I think it's what tore Calvin Jesperson and Amanda Apley apart. Probably Danny Milgrew, too. You saw the paw-prints, same as I did. You heard what the coroner said about what killed Jesperson. Hell, that thing's fang-marks are still all over my neck!"

Dean sobered instantly at the reminder, and he wiped the coffee off his chin with the back of a hand, then dried the hand against his jeans.

"All right, you're right," he said. "Then I guess that makes us dog-catchers, Sammy. So how do we kill this sonofabitch?"

* * *

By the time Sam finished explaining his plan, Dean was staring at him dumbfounded.

"Have you completely lost your mind?" he asked.

Sam threw his head back with an exasperated groan. "Look, Dean, I did all the research—I checked the lore, listened to the rituals, wrote out the pronunciation—and I'm pretty sure this is going to work."

"How pretty sure?" The crease between Dean's brows deepened skeptically.

Sam took a moment to consider the question. "_Fairly_ pretty sure," he confirmed, and Dean rolled his eyes.

"I'm not singin' a lullaby to a friggin' hellhound, Sammy. Gimme that."

He pulled Sam out of the chair and took control of the laptop, working back through the cache, scanning the information on each screen quickly before moving on.

"That thing is not a hellhound, Dean, and this is not a lullaby." Frustrated, Sam brandished the paper at him again. "It's a banishing chant to send the uyoi gitli to the Tsalagi version of the afterlife. This is no different than performing an exorcism in Latin, and you know it."

"We don't sing in Latin, Sam."

"Dea—" Sam's face pinched tight as he took firm hold of his temper, throttling it into submission, resolved not to let his brother's dogged determination to be a mulish, pig-headed jackass—

Sam ran out of barnyard references and took a deep breath, wincing as pain flared across his chest and side, adamant that his hard work would not be undermined. "This is not singing," he said evenly. "It's chanting. And I think it's our best chance to get rid of the uyoi gitli once and for all."

Dean had paused on one of Sam's cached websites, eyes roving intently, and he still wasn't buying.

"C'mon, man, Bobby's gotta know a shaman or somebody—there's that guy over in Pennsylvania, right?"

Sam shook his head. "He's Lenape, Dean. Different tribe, different lore, different rituals. This is Tsalagi."

Dean took his lower lip between his teeth, then turned from the computer with a grin.

"Proof right there I can't do it—can't even keep the tribes straight, so how am I supposed to read that Russian chicken-scratching you got going there? Somehow I don't think 'Get out of the cellar, Judy' is going to banish anything."

"'Julie,'" Sam corrected, then caught himself with an annoyed grimace. _Damn it, Dean!_ "Look, it's all written out phonetically, using simple words even _you_ can understand." He kept his tone patient and lightly persuasive, recognizing the knife-edge they were walking, hoping Dean chose not to take offense. _But he'd started it, laying down the I'm-just-a-big-dumb-jerk card…._

Dean's eyes wandered back to the computer screen for another moment before he dropped his head, preparing for possible submission.

"Man," he whined petulantly. "Why does it have to be me that sings?"

Counting to five silently, Sam willed himself to remain calm, to play his own cards right. "It's chanting, not singing. And you've got to do it because I'm gonna be busy."

Dean's head came up sharply at that, possible submission tossed aside in an instant. "Doing what?"

Sam shrugged as casually as he could manage. "I'm the special child, remember, and the uyoi gitli came after me before, so we know it wants me. I'm gonna be bait."

"Oh, no." Dean laughed. "Nonono. So not gonna happen, little brother. As I recall, that bad boy started in on me first, and then he couldn't stand the taste of you. Spat you right out. If anybody's bait, it's gonna be me."

Sam gave up all efforts to maintain his composure.

"I'm not arguing with you, Dean, I'm telling you." His voice rose sharply, and when Dean's eyes went icy, Sam batted his words away with impatience. "Look, how else do you explain Evonne Craig showing up on our doorstep with her 'message,' huh? You know there's no such thing as coincidence in our lives, man—I'm the special child, and the uyoi gitli will come after me. So please. Let me show you how to get rid of that thing and _save my life_."

It was always the ace up his sleeve, and this time, Sam had no qualms about playing it.

His brother's glare was accusatory and irate, but after a long, tense moment the coldness in Dean's eyes thawed. In another moment it melted away entirely as he unwillingly surrendered the laptop, and Sam called up the audio sample of a Tsalagi ritual chant.

"Oh, fuck me, no," Dean groaned as he listened. "Couldn't we just blast some Ozzy at him? C'mon, 'Bark at the Moon' would do it, dontcha think?"

But he turned up the volume to listen more closely, and Sam knew that he had won.

* * *

The caffeine overdose left Sam's nerves jangling, his focus scattered as they pulled off Kelton Road, parking the Impala behind a screen of trees and bushes. He climbed out of the car on shaky legs, unaccustomed to feeling so jittery, wondering briefly if there was more at play here than just too much coffee.

For whatever reason, Dean also seemed a little off his game.

"Do we use the sage again?" he asked, but Sam shook his head.

"No, we want the uyoi gitli to come to us, this time, not drive it away."

"Yeah. Right. Wouldn't want that."

Dean snapped a twig off a low-hanging fir branch then brushed hard past Sam, taking the lead as they headed down the deer-trail.

"Sorry," he tossed back over his shoulder, and Sam scowled, annoyed.

_Didn't sound very sorry._

They had decided to go back to the clearing where the uyoi gitli had first attacked them, figuring that as their best bet. It was a long and silent trek through the thick trees, but they moved quickly, intent on their target.

_Freakin' piece of crap jacket_, Dean groused to himself, flipping the collar up around his ears, _can't keep out the cold or the bugs_. He had no idea where his other jacket was, the one he'd been wearing the first time they'd hunted this thing, and no way in hell was he wearing his good leather one in these woods, get it snagged on these damn branches, maybe ripped.

He frowned, shoving away the insidious voice that reminded him he wouldn't be needing _any_ jacket, soon; tried to focus instead on the piece of paper folded in his pocket, focus on the plan, focus on the hunting.

Oh, how the hunting had changed. Fuck, even the fact he couldn't stay focused was a change, 'cause there was a time he'd loved nothing more than this very thing. Until recently, hunting had always been a romp, a glorious quest the only important consequence of which was that people got saved and bad things got killed. God, he'd _reveled_ in it.

Somewhere along the line, though, that had changed, maybe with Sam's visions, maybe with Dad's death, he didn't really know. But all the joy and all the sense of victory were gone, now, and all that remained was a gaping, gnawing hole eating at his insides, and an eternity in Hell stretching before him. That he'd be there alone, forever, terrified him.

For an awful moment, Dean allowed himself to envy Sam his life.

* * *

As always, Sam ceded point to his big brother, Dean carrying a shotgun and still moving easily ahead while Sam kept his hands free, pushing aside grasping branches and swatting impatiently at the unseen midges whining faintly around his ears. Weird they were out in this cold. He tried to stay mindful of the task at hand but his thoughts strayed unerringly to the future, to the days after Dean's time ran out.

Once, maybe, Sam had had a dog's chance at normal, but that chance was gone and he didn't foresee ever having another, despite what Dean seemed to think. No, Sam was pretty much screwed—like it or not, he would always be a hunter.

But somewhere along the line, hunting had changed. Maybe since he'd come back from the dead; maybe since he'd learned a few things from Ruby—he wasn't really sure. Not that he embraced hunting—no, not yet, not the way Dean always had. But he'd warmed to it, recently, grown to it, wrapped himself in it, knowing that for him there was no escape. The arcane and terrifying world of hunting would be his, and his alone, for the rest of his life, however long that might be. That he might actually enjoy it horrified him.

For a terrible moment, Sam allowed himself to envy Dean his death.

* * *

The clearing opened up before them, Dean's old, bloodied jacket still lying in the mud, and Dean stopped abruptly, Sam almost running into him from behind.

"Know what?" the older brother said, turning to the younger one. "Screw this."

He pulled the banishing ritual from his pocket and crumpled it one-handed, tossing it to the ground as Sam gaped at him.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked in astonishment. "Dean, we need that!"

He reached down to pick it up, but Dean swatted him on the shoulder, stopping him effectively.

"Why? What do we care if the world loses a few more hopeless, pansy-ass souls to this 'bad dog' of yours, huh? Let's just go, Sammy."

Sam blinked. "Uh, 'cause it's our _job_ to care, Dean, and we're not leaving here until we send this sonofabitch to the Place of Bad Spirits, where it belongs."

"What's the point, Sam?" Dean scoffed. "You said it yourself, one way or another—evil's just gonna keep right on comin', long after I'm gone, long after you're gone. You're so dead set on stayin' in the business? Doesn't even matter, 'cause the evil's never gonna stop comin'."

"It's our _job_, Dean," Sam repeated firmly, temper flaring. "We've always done it, all our lives, and we're not stopping now. So pick that up."

Dean squared his shoulders, squared his jaw.

"Make me," he challenged, and Sam's astonishment grew.

"What're you, friggin' ten, now, Dean? This isn't a schoolyard. This is life or death!"

"Yeah it is—_our_ lives and _our_ deaths." Markedly vexed, Dean batted at the air around his head, around his ears. "I'm about cashed in, Sammy, and that's—well, it's not fine, but it is what it is. You've got a chance to get out of this damn thing alive, and I'm beggin' you to take it, man!"

"What the hell are we even _arguing_ about, Dean?" Sam cried furiously.

"We're arguin' about you stayin' alive, you selfish bastard!" Dean spat.

"Look in a mirror, Dean!" Sam responded, reaching out to shove his brother's shoulder roughly, rocking Dean back slightly.

"Keep your giant paws to yourself, Sam," Dean said, threatening.

"You imagine you're being so freaking selfless with this deal, Dean, when we both know you just didn't bother to _think_. You jumped into an eternity in Hell because you were just too stupid to realize exactly what you were doing, and too pathetic to take living alone. So now, _I_ have to."

A tiny voice wailed in Sam's head, begging him to stop, to think about what he was saying—_ohgod, you don't mean this!_—but he elbowed it away, swatting at the pestering, invisible gnats around his ears as their tone changed from whine to something almost subsonic. God, he was sick of the candy-coating, the waltzing and dodging and weaving around the subject of Dean's deal. Time to lay all the friggin' cards right out on the table for everybody to see.

Dean's voice was rough with barely-suppressed rage and grief. "I gave my _life_ for you. Don't you throw that away, Sam."

"I can't, Dean," Sam replied venomously. "You already did. You gave me a death sentence the day you accepted yours!"

The unexpected response shook him, paralyzed him for just an instant, but then Dean shoved back with a savage growl, both hands bouncing off his brother's chest with enough force that Sam nearly lost his balance. He reached out swiftly, snagging Dean's left wrist.

"Knock it off, Dean."

Dean twisted free and pushed again.

"Fuck you, Sam."

Sam huffed a laugh; turned away slightly before launching a quick right that caught Dean in the jaw. The older man grunted in surprise, amazement becoming acceptance becoming antagonism on his face.

"Oh, you want this _now_?" Dean snarled, curling his hands into loose fists. "Well, then, you better just come on."

He kicked out abruptly, tagging Sam lightly in the shin just below his bad knee, forcing him off-balance, letting him know Dean meant business. Flailing, again Sam barely kept his feet, and Dean grinned widely, goading.

"Not gonna win any dance contests lookin' like that, Sammy."

Sam shook the hair from his eyes and assumed a ready stance, feet planted, knees flexed, mirroring his brother's cocked fists. He knew every move in Dean's repertoire, had seen him execute each one a hundred or a thousand times, knew how to read Dean's eyes and face and body to know what was coming. Still, his brother was the best fighter Sam had ever encountered. _God help me, _he thought, striving to hide his apprehension. But truth be told? He was fucking _done_ with taking Dean's crap.

Dean ran his tongue along his lower lip, watching Sam prepare. This was gonna be good, and the best part of all was gonna be taking his smart-ass little brother down a peg. Or three. Guy might be a freaking genius, but fighting was a matter where the student hadn't surpassed the teacher yet.

He dipped a shoulder, feinting left, Sam countering easily if stiffly, the claw-marks on his side obviously still giving him trouble.

The younger Winchester threw right, and Dean slapped the punch away with a laugh, Sam immediately responding by darting in with a left to the gut that almost took Dean's breath. But he recovered instantly.

"Okey-dokey, Sammy," Dean cooed, voice low and lethal. "Let's see what you got."

Sam's brow furrowed as he pulled back, protecting his side and his bad knee, an odd pressure building in his ears. "Wait," he said angrily, frowning, shaking his head to clear it. "Dean, wait."

Dean stung him lightly, knuckles on cheekbone. "Aw, you just know you're going to get your ass kicked. C'mon. Let's get it over with."

"No—something's wrong. _This_ is wrong!"

"No it ain't, Sammy—it's just been a long time comin'." And Dean waded in.

They fought, as always, with a syncretic mixture of boxing and budo and brawling that was pure Winchester, no breath wasted on jibes or taunts, the only sounds their scuffling feet, the sharp smack of fist meeting flesh, a harsh gasp when a blow landed solid.

Dean was in his element, adrenalin washing through him, feeding him. Fighting came to him like breathing, every move natural, erupting from him without conscious thought. Many times in their lives, Sam had seen him take on opponents bigger, stronger, faster, meaner—sometimes two or three at once—and still emerge the victor. His brother had a horrific gift, and he used it instinctually, finding every weakness, seizing every opportunity to inflict maximum damage. Always, _always_ he expected to win.

Sam sized up his chances. He had the longer reach, of course, helping to offset Dean's sturdy build and natural talent, but his real advantage came from knowing his brother as well as he did. There was a move Dean favored, a combination of blows from elbow and fist and foot, and if the fight lasted long enough, Dean would certainly use it. Which meant Sam could use it, too.

Through the odd, red haze of his anger, Sam planned, strategizing, biding his time. When the moment came, he would be ready.

They jabbed and dodged and kicked, throwing punches with informed abandon. Dean abruptly lowered his head and charged, butting into Sam's gut and driving him across the clearing, both of them crashing to the ground beneath thick bushes where they rolled, grappling in the mud and leaves for dominance. At last Sam scrambled free, striking out with his bad leg, catching Dean solidly in the ribs and evincing a curse from the older man, although Dean jumped nimbly to his feet, still grinning maliciously.

As he rose, Sam let fly with a straight right, but Dean ducked to one side, letting the blow graze his cheekbone and returning with a right hook that had Sam seeing stars. When Sam staggered back, Dean pressed his advantage, hitting his brother this time in the mouth, splitting Sam's bottom lip.

It was Sam's turn to curse, anger flaring brighter. He took the offensive, lashing out, landing a jab to the older man's nose that sprayed blood across them both and momentarily stopped Dean in his tracks.

"Not bad, little brother," Dean panted, swiping at his face, chest heaving. "Just try it again."

Sam obliged, launching a cross which Dean smacked down and away. Sam twisted to his side, and Dean came up under his ribs with a sharp left, then tapped Sam none too gently with his boot at the inside of Sam's bad knee.

Sam grunted, staggering as the knee threatened to give way, and Dean laughed outright. A mixture of sweat and blood burned in his eyes and he was more winded than he wanted to be, but _dammit_ this had been a long time coming, and it felt _good_. Adrenalin flooded his veins as he swatted the wetness from his brow with the back of a hand, teasing Sam meanwhile with two feinting jabs from the other, a jackal's leer plastered across his face.

Once again, he waded in. _Time to put this puppy down_.

By the time Sam recognized the combination he'd been waiting for, Dean was halfway through the second move. He'd thrown the elbow strike and had drawn his fist back for the right cross when Sam dodged. He stepped past Dean and snagged him under the left arm, forearm circling behind Dean's head, sweeping his feet out from under him with the good leg and driving him face-first into the mud, following him down. They landed heavily, Sam on top, his weight forcing the air from Dean's lungs. Dean's arm was extended back and over his head as Sam applied more pressure, smashing Dean's cheek against the ground, taking advantage of his longer legs to pinion Dean's hips, knees and ankles.

"How does _that_ feel?" Sam grated, shifting to angle Dean's arm higher, harder, feeling the bone rub against the socket as Dean groaned. "Who's the fucking better fighter now, huh, big brother?"

He snared Dean's right wrist in a bone-crushing grip, calculating every move with military precision and then flipping him in an instant, repositioning them both. Dean was lying on his back, now, face up, and Sam was in complete control as he pinned the older man to the forest floor, good knee securing Dean's left forearm against his side, Dean's right wrist now locked in Sam's other hand.

His brother bucked ineffectually beneath him, striving to throw him off-balance, but Sam had found his center of gravity and wasn't budging. Dripping sweat, he grinned down mirthlessly, striking Dean hard across the face once, twice, three times before catching Dean's windpipe in his free hand, gripping firmly, fingers pressed cruelly along his trachea. Tensing. Testing. Sam licked his lower lip, tasting the blood there.

Alarm flared in Dean's wide eyes as he glared up at Sam, still trying to wriggle free, to get enough leverage with his elbows or his legs to throw his little brother aside, breaking the air choke. But the hold on his throat was tight and relentless, and Dean felt his lungs laboring, heart already pounding, vision graying as he struggled to breathe.

"Sam!" he gasped. "Air!"

Sam smiled down at him, wolf-like, and did not let go.

* * *

_Again, thanks for reading. Comments are welcomed. Please look for Chapter 5 on Monday._


	5. Chapter 5

_Thank you so much for following "Dogged," with special appreciation to those of you who commented, or fav'd, or alerted. I'm grateful for your interest and your thoughts! Here's the tail-end of the tale. _

**DOGGED**

**Chapter Five**

The uyoi gitli appeared suddenly beside them, a noxious, howling tumult, the imploding vacuum snapping Sam's concentration, knocking him off-kilter, giving Dean the opening he needed.

He yanked his left arm free, a forearm strike breaking Sam's grip on his trachea. Dean sucked in befouled air desperately, shoving Sam away from him and from the rabid darkness, scrambling with the effort to get back on his feet.

The stench and clamor assailed them, leaving Sam on his side in the midst of the clearing, hands clamped to his ears, and Dean choking as his gorge rose. The older man staggered up, positioning himself between his brother and the Tsalagi devil, barely hearing Sam's shout.

Then the uyoi gitli engulfed him, invisible claws everywhere, slashing frenziedly. With no other way to protect himself or Sam, Dean dove to the left, rolling, somehow taking the thing with him, giving Sam room to maneuver. After that, it was all about survival.

Sam blinked, jaw working to relieve the deafening pressure in his ears, finally coming to himself enough to realize with horror that the uyoi gitli had Dean on the ground against a black-barked oak and was mauling him.

"Dean, get away!"

Dean fought to rise again, using his shoulders against the tree-trunk to work himself up, both arms raised to fend off the black beast's fangs and claws as it attacked.

"Sam!" he cried, razor-sharp nails tearing at his legs and belly. "Sing!"

"Dean!" Sam shouted again, scarcely able to hear his own voice over the roaring and screaming that filled his head. Then he threw himself forward, stretching across the ground, grasping at the paper Dean had crumpled and tossed there just minutes ago, now trampled in the mud and leaves.

With trembling fingers, Sam quickly smoothed the paper open, smearing earth and blood across it, tearing his eyes away from where Dean battled furiously against ravaging darkness. On his knees, he began to chant.

"_Gitli uyoi, gitli uhnalvhi agvnige_…."

His voice was uncertain, the frantic fluttering of too much thought costing him his confidence. It wasn't supposed to happen this way—Sam was the special child, and the uyoi gitli should be attacking him, not his brother. The plan could not be wrong: Sam would be bait, and he would survive, because Dean would save him. As he always had, and always would, so long as Dean lived.

Hours ago, after Sam had worked out the ramifications of the Tsalagi legend's apparent coincidence, he had understood why the beast had not killed him the first time; why it could never kill him. The knowledge had filled him with an intense sense of warmth and security, a feeling of deep, almost spiritual well-being. But it had darkened quickly, leaving Sam shaken and determined and grieving because, in a matter of weeks or days, it would all be ripped from him.

When Dean was ripped from him.

Sam would not lose his brother one moment too soon.

Gasping, he climbed to his feet, forcing himself to focus on the paper, on the printed words, the high and low tones of the sounds he made.

"_Tsiwonihu._"

Oh, God, was he saying it right?

Again, doubt in his own abilities assailed him, just as it had in the early morning hours, before he'd finally decided that Dean must be the one to perform the banishing ritual. Hadn't the Trickster told him, hadn't experience _shown_ them that Sam could not save Dean? Might never save him? This—what was happening now, this travesty of reversed roles—would be just another example of that terrible truth. A fatal example. Dean _had_ to be the one who chanted, not Sam.

Purposefully, Sam had prepared the rite for Dean to complete. Oh, the words had come from his own heart—he'd selected them carefully, specifically, the ritual a testament to his brother, a paean to Dean's strength and bravery and goodness and love, born out of Sam's love—but they were meant for Dean to speak. While Sam might never have the courage to tell him face to face what Dean meant to him (_everything, Dean_), the force and depth of Sam's feelings would surely reach the uyoi gitli through the words his brother recited.

It didn't matter if Dean didn't understand the words. His thoughts and actions made them real; translated them clearly, perfectly, almost every day. Made them his own. Of that, Sam was certain. The words were true, no matter which brother spoke them, and their truth would send the uyoi gitli to the Darkening Land of Tsalagi hell.

"Sam!"

The weight of _nothing_ sent Dean once more to his knees as the uyoi gitli struck hard, tearing into him with a fierce and deadly fury.

Sam gaped at him, fixed with shock as invisible fang and claw sank viciously into his brother's flesh, Dean struggling back upright, kicking and punching beneath the onslaught, clearly overwhelmed but still fighting.

"Sammy!" Dean cried out again, and Sam had one more chance to learn from his brother's example.

_He would fight, and he would do this_, Sam thought doggedly, coming back to himself. If he could not save Dean from Hell, he would at least protect him from the Cherokee devil's rapacious, unleashed rage.

Conviction finally gave him confidence, his voice gaining strength as Sam repeated the first verse of the banishing prayer, eyes now riveted to the paper before him.

_Bad dog; mad, black dog,  
__I am speaking._

Dean screamed in anguish as savage claws raked down his right arm, ripping through the fabric of his jacket as though it were made of cobweb.

Sam sang louder.

"_Tsiwonihu._ _Ka! Tsi utselidv, ulanigida. Gasiyu, Ka!_"

There was a subtle dampening as the racket dimmed, the blur of black motion surrounding Dean slowing minutely. Sam looked up for half a second, registering the agony on his brother's face, the fresh blood on his clothing, then jerked his eyes back to the paper and continued to chant.

"_Hega, adonvdo ulasiga, adonvdo gadahai. Hia tsosdanvtli. Dudo ayawisgi, ganohalidohi. Dudo galvquodi, uwoduhi, agigau. Hia udanuht. Osiyu."_

It was working! The blackness slowed even more, drawing back from Dean, no longer attacking. Instead, the uyoi gitli seemed confused and anxious as it hovered between the brothers with the angry noise of a million hornets.

"Keep singing, Sam!" Dean groaned, sagging unsteadily back against the tree, his injured arm pressed close to his side, blood running freely down his fingers to spatter on the ground beneath him. His legs gave way suddenly and he fell to the ground in a heap, eyes still locked on his little brother.

Sam stood tall and unshaken in the center of the clearing, eyes bright as he chanted faster and ever stronger.

"_Tsosdadaanvtli igohidaquugesv. Galieliga. Tsiwonihu.  
__Tayi, gitli uyoi. Sudali. Ditsenvsvi hega. Dihale skuwa tekalei.  
__Hega, hega, ka!"_

The blackness moved hesitantly toward Sam, a whipped cur winding around his legs, cringing, the uyoi gitli seeming to shrink in upon itself as Sam continued. The sound, now of baying hounds and screaming parrots, muted perceptibly.

"_Elohi Mona Galunlati u nata  
__Galieliga  
__Ka! Tayi! Awaniski!  
__Iyadvnelvhi."_

As he neared the end of the prayer, Sam quailed, faith that the banishing would work suddenly precarious. He had no doubt that if it did not, one or both of the Winchesters would die, sending each to his separate Hell. He sought and found Dean's eyes, seeking courage, seeking assurance. Seeking forgiveness, if he failed.

Dean gazed back at him steadfastly, a slight smile on his battered face, emanating belief and trust and something that looked very much like pride. Somewhere inside, Sam marveled at that, took strength from it.

He pitched the final syllable low, sustaining the note until there was no more breath in his lungs.

When the dark thing vanished in that instant, the implosion caused a sonic boom that nearly burst Sam's eardrums. His hands shot to his head, paper fluttering unheeded to the forest floor, and then the pain was past and his eyes flew once more to Dean, crumpled and bleeding beside the oak tree.

"Dean!" Sam whispered, heart in his throat, and his brother blinked up at him.

"Sammy," he said, voice ragged with pain and relief, "don't you ever mock my taste in music again."

Dean's smile widened, splitting his face, and Sam grinned broadly, then laughed outright as he hurried to his brother's side. His laughter faded as he knelt, taking in the blood that had soaked everywhere through Dean's jeans and shirts and jacket, staining them dark crimson. He grasped Dean's wounded arm in gentle hands for a hasty triage.

Sam whipped out of his own jacket and button-down, using the shirt as a bandage, tying it securely if messily around Dean's sleeve to stem the flow of blood, "This is bad," he said softly, "but I don't think it's going to kill you. Here, keep pressure on it. Can you stand? We need to get you out of here."

"Yeah," Dean replied with a groan, gathering wobbly legs under him and preparing to rise. "Put your jacket back on and gimme a hand, Mr. Manilow."

"Hey, the chant worked, didn't it?" Sam shrugged back into his jacket and got a grip under Dean's arms, hoisting him to his feet, propping him against the tree for a moment as Dean swayed unsteadily. "You could show a little appreciation, you know."

He froze at the sound of his own words, unsure suddenly whether he had intended them as harmless raillery, or as a sniping grievance over Dean's recent callousness and cruelty.

_Was the acrimony that had hounded them all week still dogging them? Oh, God—please, no. No more fighting... _

The confusion was suffocating, and more than anything, Sam wished he could take everything back. Hell, take back the whole fucking week, every complaint and curse, every glare, every malicious jibe. He wished to God this bitter aggression between them were over, once and for all.

Then that hurt, too, because _every_thing would be over for them all too soon, and Dean would be dead.

At a loss, stupefied by the onslaught of fresh grief, Sam looked to Dean, waiting for his big brother to take the lead, to decide how they would proceed from here.

Dean pushed off the tree and wavered, getting his land-legs, putting out a hand to grasp the sleeve of Sam's jacket tightly.

"Appreciation?" he growled, then blinked slowly, using his own sleeve to wipe away the blood smeared on his face from temple to cheekbone, from nose to chin. "God, Sammy, I don't know which was worse—the noise that thing was making, or your caterwauling."

Dean's laugh was tiny and tired, but Sam had no doubt it was genuine, and he sucked in a lungful of air, his own grin of relief growing.

"Make fun all you want, Dean," he replied, almost euphoric. "We're still alive."

He surveyed his brother for a quick moment, trying to decide which arm was least injured and opting for the left, which he wrapped over his shoulder. Then he snaked his right arm around Dean's waist, taking most of his weight. "You good?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm good. Better'n you, anyway—at least I can carry a tune."

Sam snorted with disingenuous disdain. "Right now I'm carrying _you_, Dean. Keep it up, and I'm just going to leave you out here. The uyoi gitli can have you."

"No, no, Sammy. You sent that bad boy to the dog-house, and it ain't comin' back."

They headed slowly out of the woods toward the Impala, Sam limping heavily on his bad knee and Dean attempting not to lean too hard against him.

After several minutes, Sam threw a glance at his brother. Dean was humming Ted Nugent vaguely under his breath.

_Dog, dog, dog eat dog…._

Sam rolled his eyes, steeling himself for what was sure to be a barrage, once it started.

"You might just as well say it, Dean."

The older man grinned up at him tiredly. "Seriously, Sam? Add a little acoustic blues guitar and you'd be giving Seamus a run for his money."

"I do not sound like Pink Floyd."

"No, but you do sound a lot like Steve Marriott's dog."

"You were supposed to have been the one chanting, you know."

Dean stumbled, and Sam grabbed at him quickly.

"I can do it," the older Winchester complained, not entirely truthful. He shrugged out of Sam's grasp anyway and stumbled again.

"Dean, you look like you had a cage-fight in a food processor. Against a guy with a really big sledge-hammer. Let me help you."

Sam didn't wait for permission before snagging his brother up. "A simple thank-you isn't all that much to ask, you know," he chastised lightly. "Try it. Say, 'Thanks, Sam, for saving our lives and the lives of countless others with your inspired banishing ritual.'"

"Dude, what tune was that, anyway? Didn't sound anything like what we were listening to on the Internet. Good thing that gitli-whatever was as tone-deaf as you are."

Sam nodded. "You're welcome, Dean."

They staggered on a few more steps before Dean's brow creased.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, "you put a little work into it, you could probably get your own TV show, like that animal psychic or that dog-whisperer guy. Only, with _music_. And hot chick dancers. Could be Emmy material, Sam—I think you could really pull in the ratings."

"Shut up now, Dean."

"I'm tellin' you, Sam—we've got connections in Tinseltown. Maybe we should talk with the networks. What do you think—wanna give it a shot?"

"I think I'm going to give _you _a shot unless you knock it off."

The sounds of their fond banter faded from the clearing, until all that remained was silence.

* * *

Somewhere on the way back to the car, Sam found the little branch of fir in his jacket pocket, and his good humor vanished in an instant.

"What the--? How did this--? Dean, this is _cedar_."

Dean was focused on walking, had forgotten the cedar, and missed Sam's tone altogether.

"Can we skip the nature-hike lecture just this once, Sammy?"

"You fucking idiot!" Sam's voice rose angrily, and Dean came to a stop, still sagging against his brother, looking up at him white-faced with pain and exhaustion, finally understanding Sam's venom. He did not argue.

"How, Sam?" he asked honestly, evenly. "How am I a fucking idiot? Because I know cedar is powerful medicine in Cherokee ritual? Because I know their tradition says it protects against evil spirits?"

Sam glared down at him, brows beetling with outrage and surprise.

"No, Dean—I don't know how the hell you had the time to find that out, but that's not why you're an idiot. You put this in my pocket so the uyoi gitli would have no choice but to—"

"It _had_ to come after me, Sammy. I still have to protect you."

Dean spoke so softly that Sam almost did not hear him. The younger Winchester laughed in disgusted disbelief.

"Dean, we had a _plan_! You can't just throw out the plan without telling me! You could have gotten us _both_ killed."

"Wasn't gonna happen, Sam," Dean replied, matter-of-fact, trying to turn away until Sam grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back forcibly.

"We have to work together, man," the younger man said through gritted teeth. "We have to be able to trust one another. This—how can I trust you after this?"

Dean's expression was wrecked as he searched for words, finally shrugging helplessly. "I'm sorry, Sam," he rasped. "I know you're keeping secrets from me. This one was mine."

* * *

Sam fumed all the way back to the Impala, making no effort to be mindful of his brother's injuries, hauling Dean angrily along beside him.

His own temper evaporated, Dean tried hard to keep up, head hanging, miserable not from his injuries, not at what he had done, but at having been caught.

What Sam had said was true—to be an effective team, they needed to be able to trust one another. But the time that remained for teamwork was short, and until Dean drew his final breath, his first, his _only_ priority would be to protect Sam at all costs, even if it meant losing his little brother's trust. It would be a hard price to pay, yet the alternative was worse by far.

Nothing bad could happen to Sam. Not on Dean's watch.

_But damn it, Sammy, I don't want you to hate me._

"I don't want to fight any more," Dean said quietly as they limped at last to where the car sat waiting.

Sam's scowl darkened as he drew to a halt. "What? What does that mean, Dean?"

"I don't want to argue with you any more. I just—Sam, can we just get along, for whatever time we have left?"

Sam felt suddenly as though he had been punched in the gut, his breath stolen away in an instant along with all his anger and frustration. Regret and grief rushed in to fill the void, leaving him shaking and weak-kneed.

The last words he'd heard from their father had been almost the same. His own thoughts back in the clearing, almost the same.

His throat worked, the tickle in his nose announcing the approach of tears, and Sam ducked his head quickly.

"Dean, I—"

He waited a long moment, determined to get a grip on his emotions, Dean standing abjectly beside him, waiting for Sam's lead, for some sign that they'd be all right.

At last, Sam huffed a faint laugh and looked squarely at his big brother, placing a hand on Dean's least-injured shoulder and gripping it firmly.

"I don't know if we can," he replied softly, "but we can sure as hell try."

* * *

Dean climbed carefully into the Impala's passenger side, leaning away from the door, his injured arm folded gingerly in his lap. That gitli fucker hadn't been fooling around this time, and the gashes along his arm burned painfully, making Dean think fondly of whiskey and ice. Lots of whiskey, very little ice.

Sam had applied extensive field first-aid with supplies from the trunk, but Dean figured that the best medicine for both of them at this point would be getting the hell out of Kentucky.

He caught Sam throwing a surreptitious glance at him as the younger Winchester situated himself behind the wheel, saw the cuts and bruises across his bloodied knuckles as Sam turned the key in the ignition, the big engine's rumble like a lullaby.

"Just go," Dean murmured, settling back against the seat and closing his eyes tiredly.

On the way back to the motel, they decided it had been the uyoi gitli's influence that caused the brutal fight they'd had in the clearing, their unrelenting savagery stimulated by the Tsalagi devil's manifestation.

"There was a sound," Sam remembered vaguely. "I kept hearing a whining sound—"

In the end, it was easier to just blame the fierceness of their anger on the beast, rather than to consider any other explanation.

"And the reason we didn't try to kill each other the first time the fugly bastard came after us?" Dean really just wanted to get the story straight, one that exonerated them both, clearing the record and the air once and for all.

Sam took in a deep breath, using the moment to concoct a feasible answer. "Smudging," he said finally. "We used the sage that first time, for protection. Remember?"

A satisfied grin flitted across Dean's face. "Yeah," he replied. "Salvation through inhalation."

And speaking of inhaling...

Nose wrinkling, Sam caught a whiff of himself. Between sweat and blood and the lingering fetor of the uyoi gitli, he was pretty rank.

"God, I stink," he said with a groan, pressing back into the seat as though trying to escape his own odor. He cracked open the window, cold air flooding through the car.

"Like a wet dog, Sammy," Dean agreed congenially, smile falling from his face as he flipped open his cell and punched in a number.

Sam frowned, tiredly massaging his aching knee while Dean waited for the connection.

"_Gilman County Sheriff's Office. May I help you?"_

"Hey!" Dean said, voice all imitation excitement, leaving Sam to wonder where he got the energy. "You found that missing girl yet? 'Cause me and Uncle Frankie was fishing out at Saymill Pond and we think we mighta seen a body, right there on the south bank, where it—"

He snapped the phone shut with a grimace, and Sam heaved a sigh.

"At least her mom won't have to wonder any more," he said.

"Yeah." Dean dropped the cell into his pocket, lost in thought, absently fiddling with the flayed right sleeve of his jacket. Then he blinked, turning to Sam. "Hey, I could use a drink, and I don't think I'm gonna make it to the bar tonight. We still got that bottle in the trunk, right?"

"Yeah, I think it's there. Ought to be enough for _both_ of us." Sam suffered momentarily in silence, then added quietly, "Jesus, Dean, your face is a mess."

"That's your handiwork, you giant freak of nature." Dean's voice was rough but without heat as he worked to ease the ache in his hyper-extended shoulder, the reopened wounds there. "Dammit, Sammy, where'd you learn to fight like that?"

Sam winced at the marks his fingers had left on Dean's throat, the marks his hands had left on Dean's face. He could not remember ever having beaten someone so terribly before. In all honesty, he could not remember much about having beaten Dean, and right now that seemed like a blessing.

But this was not the time for apologies. Not yet. So he shrugged, and started laying new cards on the table instead.

"I had a pain-in-the-ass big brother, and he taught me everything I know."

Heartache flitted across Dean's face, and Sam knew he was thinking of the rancor that had been between them all week, thinking of the clock approaching midnight. Twice Dean started to speak, each time opting not to, choosing to wait, until finally--

"Sam."

"Dean, don't."

"No, Sammy, listen. That thing, the first time it came at us, when it got you by the throat. I'm sorry I gave you so much shit about that. I never really thought…." He paused, searching for words. "I mean, I know it didn't let you go because of anything you—well, it didn't stop attacking because of _you_."

Sam's smile was tender and sad, and he wished there were any chance he could ever repay his idiot brother for all he had done for him. "No, Dean, it stopped because of _you_."

Dean opened his mouth to respond, but no words came as his brows drew together in bewilderment.

"Huh?"

Sam pulled the car to the shoulder sharply, left the engine idling as he threw the gearshift into 'park' and turned to his brother. Dean's green eyes—_and oh, Sam saw the irony in that_—his green eyes were bright with consternation as Sam took in a deep breath, deciding where to begin.

"Listen, we think the victims all had a brother or a sister who envied them because they were gifted, right? The beekeeper, Calvin Jesperson, Amanda—they all had somebody who coveted their talent or their success. Dean, I know what you gave up for me when we were growing up. You saw to it that I had everything I needed, even if it meant you had to do without. You could have resented the hell out of me. I mean, I know you thought that Dad—"

"Sam, stop."

"No, Dean, I'm going to say it! You gave me _every_thing, without regret, or anger, or jealousy. Sometimes with a load of shit, yeah—" Sam laughed with the acknowledgement, dimples deepening—"but, Dean, all you ever did was love me, man, and _that's_ why the uyoi gitli stopped. Because there was no jealousy to feed it. It stopped because of _you_."

"Uh." Dean ran teeth over his lower lip, disconcerted, eyes darting away for a long moment as he mulled over Sam's explanation. It was true that he loved his little brother, beyond doubt, but--

"I think we just confused it, Sammy," he said finally, lamely. "I mean, since we're both special—you with whatever this thing is you have going on with the demons, and me with my phenomenal good looks."

"Quit deflecting," Sam ordered fondly. "Everything I have, everything I am, is because of you, Dean. Thank you."

"Sam, could we just not—"

Dean stopped, acceptance and affection and apology playing tag across his face, until he met his brother's eyes again at last.

"You're welcome," he said.

* * *

It took the older man a while, until they were just outside Grangerford, but Sam knew it was coming. So he wasn't surprised when Dean fidgeted uncomfortably in the passenger seat, brow furrowed.

"Hey, Sammy?"

"What?"

"If that gitli thing only attacked envied siblings, and I look like I came out of the back end of the slice-n-dice, then that means—"

"It means that I'm the jealous brother, Dean."

"Huh." Dean chewed on that for a few moments, then turned to his brother, perplexed. "And that would be because?"

"So many reasons, Dean," Sam replied, grinning with the gentle gibe. "You can fool yourself that you're irresistible to women, you can eat all kinds of garbage and never get sick, you don't feel bad about letting your body go the way you have…the list is endless."

"You are a walking, talking piece of very tall crap, Sammy."

"Which beats being a short piece of crap any day, Dean."

"Yeah, well—" Dean huffed, at a loss for a good retort. It didn't matter, because the air was clear between them again, things back on an even keel. Oh, he wasn't buying Sam's stupid-ass story about why the uyoi gitli hadn't ripped his throat out, and Sam wasn't over being mad about the cedar—the trust thing was still going to be an issue in the days ahead. But Sam didn't hate him, and for now they could pretend that everything was good, and God, that _felt_ good.

Plus, it seemed like maybe the real fighting had ended. That felt _great_.

Dean sank lower in the seat, wedging himself against the door and pulling his torn jacket closer around him as he closed his eyes tiredly. "I'll tell you what's crap—it's this jacket. This jacket is _crap_."

Crisis averted, Sam reached out and cuffed him lightly on the shoulder, mindful of his injuries. Dean grumbled wordlessly and paid him no heed.

His brother would freak if told the real cause of Sam's jealousy, Sam knew. And he wasn't sure that he himself really believed it, anyway. What kind of sense did it make, wishing you could trade places with someone bound for Hell?

Sam shoved the thought roughly to the back of his mind, and the Impala sped on.

* * *

Evonne Craig's little car was not in the motel parking lot, nor did Dean spot it at the bar down the road. But there was a folded note wedged in their door, which Sam offered to his brother without a word, turning the key in the lock and lurching inside to sink wearily onto the closest bed.

Dean paused on the doorstep, opening the note, squinting to read Evonne's shaky handwriting.

"_Dean, seventh awful time's the charm, I guess, and now it seems the message is really for you. You probably already know it, too, but for what it's worth: You're much more than an attack-dog, Dean. More than Sam's guard-dog. You're a part of why he's special, and he needs you. Fight __beside__ him. Fight to __stay__ beside him. Whatever that means."_

She had started to sign her name, then crossed it out, scribbling "_Batgirl_" instead.

He quirked an uncertain smile, crumpling the note in his bruised right hand as he stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him.

"What did she say?" Sam asked, leaning back against the pillows with an exhausted sigh. He'd been up for over 30 hours, the day's physical and emotional duress draining him completely, and now he just wanted to sleep for a week.

"Get off my bed, Sam," Dean growled without anger, and Sam's lips curled upward.

"Fight you for it," he suggested tiredly, not moving except to close his eyes.

Dean inventoried the marks he'd left on his little brother's face, noted ruefully the fresh blood that had seeped through Sam's shirt from the reopened wounds on his chest and side. After a moment, he sat beside Sam's feet and began unlacing first one boot, then the other. Sam made no argument and no effort to help, instead melting deeper into the pillows, for the time being too spent to do anything else.

God knew, Dean didn't want to leave Sam behind, facing all this evil shit on his own. But he wouldn't be alone, really—there was Bobby and the Harvelles, still, and Missouri. Even Ruby, in a hinky, effed-up way that Dean really couldn't begin to understand. No, once Dean was gone, Sammy'd be fine. Whatever he decided to do. He was smart and strong and courageous and…and really _smart_, dammit, and he'd be just _fine_.

If he wasn't, Dean would just have to climb back out of Hell and kick his ass.

Careful of Sam's sore knee, Dean tugged off his left boot and sock, tossing them with a thud into a corner of the room before getting to work on the right ones. He thought Sam had already drifted to sleep, when his brother roused enough to nudge him with a bare foot.

"Dean? What did Evonne say in the note?"

"She's gone, Sammy," Dean murmured softly. "Said to tell you goodbye."

* * *

After cautious application of a cold, wet washcloth and a stiff shot of whiskey, Dean decided his face didn't really look all that bad, once you got past the scrapes and bruises and swelling.

His grin was only slightly lopsided. _Hell, when you had great material to start with_….

Too clawed up to find a comfortable position for sleep, he showered and dressed, briefly bewildered at the damp t-shirt he pulled first from his duffel. Then he chewed down some aspirin, landed in a chair and flipped desultorily through the television channels until his growling stomach demanded he wake his brother for dinner. Injuries and exhaustion be damned; they opted against take-out.

There was a notable buzz at the little restaurant next door, and their waitress couldn't wait to tell them about it.

"It's been a busy day!" she chirped, gaze lingering only momentarily on the assortment of injuries on their faces and hands as she showed them to a vacant booth and turned over two menus. "Everybody's talking—I haven't seen this much excitement since I don't know when."

The cut on his lip threatened to open again when Sam smiled, so he toned it down considerably, flicking his eyes at her name-tag. "What's going on, Kathi?"

"Oh, horrible things, just horrible." Like any good gossip, the perky waitress seemed more than pleased by the bad news she could share. "They found the body of that poor little Apley girl—you boys from around here? No? Well, they thought she run off from Stanboro three, four days ago, but they just found her body out at Saymill Pond. Looks like she's been there the whole time. They don't know how she died, yet—maybe that damn dog-pack, again—but I heard that it wasn't pretty. Poor thing probably tried to catch a ride with the wrong guy, if you ask me, and she paid the price."

"That's terrible," Sam agreed, shooting a look at Dean and finding his brother paying unusual attention to the menu. "I hope her family can find some peace, now."

Kathi nodded, slapping placemats and utensils in front of them, then snagging the ketchup bottle from the condiment rack.

"I'll refill this for you in a minute," she said, "after you boys decide what you want. Should've done it earlier, but I've been a little rattled."

"Hard to hear news like that," Sam replied, handing her the nearly-empty mustard container as well.

"Especially what with the accident, too!"

Dean raised his head instantly at her exclamation.

"What accident?"

Kathi clucked her tongue. "Drunk driver ran off the road just south of town, smack into a tree, about two hours ago. Killed instantly, they said. Too bad, too—she was a nice lady."

The stricken look on Dean's face told Sam exactly what he was thinking.

"You knew her?" he asked.

The waitress shrugged, mouth turning down quickly. "Not really. She came in from the motel—dinner last night, lunch today. Shy, a little skittish. I didn't have any idea she was a drinker, though, and I'm a pretty good judge of people. Seen my share of drunks, let me tell you. No, she just seemed kind of upset, sort of sad, maybe a little lonesome—oh, look!"

She motioned out the window at the road, and the brothers turned. "There goes the tow truck with her car."

It was Evonne's little gray Kia, as Dean somehow had known it would be, now a crumpled heap.

Sam watched quietly as his brother rubbed a hand across his eyes, then looked up at the waitress, poised with order pad and pen at the ready but her bright gaze following the tow truck down the road.

"Could you give us a few minutes, please?"

Kathi blinked at him, then smiled.

"Sure thing, hon. Holler when you're ready."

When she left, Dean stared unseeing out the window, menu forgotten in his hands, until Sam broke the heavy silence between them.

"Dean, do you think she—"

"Saw it coming? I don't know, Sam. I think she might've said something, if she had. Told one of us, you know. Told _me_."

"Yeah, I think she might have." Sam chose his words carefully, unsure of their impact. "But what I meant was, do you think she did it on purpose."

Dean looked at him sharply, startled by the suggestion. "I—I don't know. I don't think—I mean, she said she had a hard time dealing with the whole thing. She felt like a freak, and everybody in her life had pretty much ditched her. She was all alone, Sammy, and it seemed like she couldn't adapt to that. Maybe. Maybe she just couldn't take it any—"

Realization flashed in him suddenly, and Dean got the message.

For a long moment he looked into Sam's haunted eyes, reading things there he knew and had known and still did not want to recognize, to accept. The wave of grief that flooded him was almost more than he could bear.

"Sam--"

Dean stood abruptly, sliding awkwardly out of the booth, knocking into the table in his hurry to rise. He threw the menu down as though it had scalded him.

"I'm not really hungry," he said, voice rough. "Can we just go?"

Sam nodded, collecting the laptop wordlessly while Dean waited, murmuring an apologetic goodbye to the waitress as the brothers walked together out of the restaurant.

They packed quickly, and by the time the moon rose, they had left Kentucky far behind.

_fin_

* * *

_Again, thanks for reading. Comments are welcome._

_Yes, I am completely freaked out by the thought of what might happen in the rest of S3…._

_I made up the legend of the uyoi gitli, and fabricated the word 'Chischono' by tweaking a Tsalagi term for 'evil spirit.'_

_With apologies to anyone who knows how to __really__ speak and/or write Tsalagi, following is the English translation of the banishing chant Sam concocted with his research on the Internet. Apparently, it was good enough to have the intended effect._

"_Bad Dog; mad, black Dog,  
__I am speaking._

_Pay attention, for I am special and I am strong.  
__I am Good, so heed me._

_Go, dark and unclean spirit. _

_This is my brother.  
__His name is Warrior; it is Hunter.  
__His name is precious, beautiful and beloved.  
__This is a person of soul, truth and feeling,  
__and he is Good._

_We are brothers forever.  
__For this I am grateful, believe me._

_Get out, Bad Dog.  
__You are going.  
__Go home! _

_We demand it. _

_Go, go! Do you hear me?_

_Our parents, the Earth and Sky, are giving.  
__I am grateful._

_Listen to me!  
__I command you to go!  
__I have spoken, and it is done!"_


End file.
